


Riot Gear

by sinfuldesire_archivist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Mpreg, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-09-03 15:00:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8718325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinfuldesire_archivist/pseuds/sinfuldesire_archivist
Summary: Shortly before they ganked Dick Roman Sam became pregnant. He either knew and didn't tell Dean because he didn't want to give Dean any more pressure or he had no idea at all. The stress and trauma of seeing Dean and Cas disappear along with Crowley taking off with Kevin sends Sam into a downward spiral. The added stress from hitting Riot causes Sam to have a miscarriage. Sam spends time recovering physically, but not emotionally, with Amelia who knows not to ask about the baby.When Dean gets back and reams Sam out for not looking for him, Sam can't bring himself to tell Dean what happened. He thinks Dean will blame him for losing their kid and that it'll be the final straw. Maybe Sam sneaks out to visit the grave and Dean follows, but up to the author how Dean finds out. Cue guilty!Dean and hurt!Sam who has to relive the painful memories from the last year.





	1. Riot Gear 1/3

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the Sinful Desire archivists: this story was originally archived at [Sinful-Desire.org](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Sinful_Desire). To preserve the archive, we began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2016. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Sinful Desire collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/sinfuldesire/profile).

  
Author's notes: the story is complete. also posted at here: http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/66638.html?thread=21109326&  


* * *

BEFORE:

 

Sam's first thought after Dean and Cas, after Kevin and Crowley and a room full of slime had become a memory embedded in his mind like shrapnel, didn't come until he was three states away staring out of the Impala's cracked windshield. 

 

'This is all I have left then.'

 

\-----------

 

He tries research. He tries looking for something, anything, to get Dean and Cas back. He eats, sleeps, reads, eats sleeps reads, eatssleepsreadseatssleepsreadseatssleepsreads, rinse and repeat, until one day a month has passed and he has nothing to show for it but a boiling frustration that erupts in bursts of rage he takes out on the paisley motel walls. 

 

He breaks six of his knuckles. 

 

All the angels he knows are dead so there's no trying that one. Not like they'd come for his prayers now, after everything. 

 

Most hunters want to kill him, have killed him in fact, so taking the padlock off the door to those connections isn't happening. 

 

He calls Death and gets bupkis. The Horseman had always liked Dean better anyway.

 

\-----------

 

What Sam doesn't do, is deal. He does, surprisingly, get propositioned in Huston by a banjo-playing low level with something to prove in the big city. It's not even at night. Early morning, actually. He's just ordered his fruit cup with toast and orange juice when a tall man in plaid, thickest bayou accent he's ever heard, slides into the other seat at his booth. Then there are greasy fingernails sliding across the table, leaving four smears on the tacky surface. 

 

When Sam looks up he sees a smile that's missing teeth. He pulls Ruby's knife from his belt, folds it in front of his stomach. 

 

"Can I help you?"

 

"Why yes, I do think you can." Black eyes turn down and eye Sam's face, his chest. 

 

Sam's gut. 

 

"You see there's talk about what you're carrying around, Abomination, and I'd like in on that. Trade maybe. Mutually beneficial and all that."

 

Sam puts a twenty on the table and walks out with Black Eyes trailing closely at his back.

 

He ganks the little shit behind the building and drives away from Huston, newly acquired black eye be damned. 

 

He may be an Abomination, but he's not a monster. 

 

\-----------

 

Sam doesn't sleep.

 

\-----------

 

He keeps losing weight.

 

\-----------

 

Sam's propositioned for the fifth time in a diner outside of Kermit, Texas and all he wants is to drink a beer and sleep forever and goddamnit why can't he finish a meal in peace anymore? When Ruby's knife drives home through the girl's chest, young and innocent looking with miles of golden ringlets trailing down back, Sam's stomach is lurching. The same lurching it did this morning when he puked par for the course, but with something sharper beneath it. It's an unusual tingling that comes with black spots around the edges of his vision and pinpricks in his lungs and he needs to lie down now, he thinks. Yeah. Now would be good. 

 

\-----------

 

He hits a dog. 

 

\-----------

 

Sam dreams of blood. Pools of it around him during a vamp hunt. Green goo from a radioactive octopus back when he was barely thirteen. Splatters from a gunshot victim in Oklahoma that the police called 'a dog-splicing experiment gone wrong'. 

 

Dripping black slime not even borax could burn away. 

 

Rivulets down his leg. Staining his jeans. Making his shoes squelch when he takes a step forward to ask if the dog is alright. 

 

When he cracks his head open on the linoleum of the vet's office. 

 

When Amelia screams. 

 

And screams. 

 

\-----------

 

Sam dreams of Dean's smile. 

 

\-----------

 

CHAPTER 2

 

\----------

 

It's a well established, proven fact that whenever a Winchester is in the hospital, serious shit has gone down. If it's a stay that lasts more than one night, more than one hour really, it's probably life and death. 

 

Sam's there for a little over a week. 

 

When he comes to, it's been a day and a half already. It feels like he's rising up through wet sand, like he's breathing through cotton laced with glass. His eyes are taped down and for a second he starts to freak, flailing and thrashing as best he can in his condition. He coughs up thick yellow mucus from the back of his throat and nearly chokes. He doesn't think he's wearing pants. 

 

All in all it's a sad sight. 

 

After he's been restrained, after he's given water and wiped down by a handful of nurses, doctors pile in the room. This is a teaching hospital they explain, and students will be stopping by with each visit. They ask if he minds. Sam can barely shrug.

 

The chief, Dr. MacDonald talk about ripping and tearing; his pelvic floor looks like it went through a shredder, like he lost a fight with a dog and talk of sexual assault is momentarily brought up in a way that's probably supposed to be delicate. 

 

Sam thinks he looks constipated. 

 

They had to perform a c-section to get the fetus out, but it didn't have eyes yet, didn't have skin that fully covered its muscles, it's organs were a mess. It makes sense the baby died, they say. Underdeveloped and stress and malnutrition are words that are mentioned, but Sam begins tuning doctors out after the first few minutes. On purpose at first, then slowly darkness pulls him under again and he welcomes sleep as an interruption. 

 

\----------

 

This time Sam dreams of bloody children clawing their way out of his stomach like in 'Alien'. He's on a table and Dean's watching through a rounded glass window. Sam's skin is grainy like the pictures from a motel television. He's in a bubble and he's screaming and all Dean does is watch, eat popcorn and laugh at the cheesy effects. 

 

\----------

 

When Sam wakes up the second time Amelia's there, sitting in one of the hospital rocking chairs they keep in the maternity wards. She's staring at her toes, pushing herself gently forward and back in a blue dress that swishes against the old wood with soft brushing sounds. 

 

Sam's asleep again before she notices he was awake at all. 

 

\----------

 

What Sam doesn't expect is for Amelia to fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness. She's crying into his bedcovers and he has no idea why until the muffled words 'sorry, so so sorry' escape from the sheets. 

 

"I didn't mean to upset you! It's just I was so angry about the dog and that seems so stupid now, but I just-... there was so much blood."

 

Sam looks at her, confused, "How are you allowed in here?"

 

"I... I told them you were my boyfriend. Sorry." She sends him a sheepish grimace, "I just wanted to know you were going to wake up. You almost dented my floor you fell so hard."

 

"I'm sorry. I'm kind of a big guy."

 

"No!" Amelia takes his hands in hers, "It's not a big deal. It's just a floor. I just wanted to make sure you were ok."

 

'Huh.' Sam thinks, 'Her hands are warm,'

 

\----------

 

Amelia doesn't leave.

 

Sam doesn't really mind. He hasn't had a girlfriend in years.

 

\----------

 

By the end of the week, Sam's drugged up to ease the freshly-stabbed feeling in his abdomen and he's learned more about Amelia than he has about anyone in seven days. With all the moving in his life he's never had time to make friends and hunters, even friendly ones, tend to keep things close to their chest. Sometimes they don't even trust their family. Samuel's proof enough of that. 

 

So Sam rides wave after wave of morphine and learns about Amelia. He learns she likes an excess of limes in her margaritas and that she graduated middle of her class in English Lit. She knows how to bust a man's face open with her knuckles, curtesy of her dad because 'A girl's gotta know how to defend herself Amy! Now untuck your thumb, you'll break it if you hit anything with it curled under your fingers!'

 

He learns she likes fair trade shoes and skinny jeans, that she has naturally curly hair and loves the color yellow. 

 

\----------

 

She's named the dog Riot. 

 

She never asks about the baby.

 

\----------

 

When he's discharged Amelia's got her hand on his knee and women are whispering to her about what to do now he's going home. How they understand she can't have children and what a nice boyfriend to be willing to take on that gift for her. Does the donor want to know what's happened? 

 

Even with a lifetime of experience, Sam's amazed at her smooth way of lying. A nod here, a smile there; never giving too much information, just enough. 

 

Then he's handed a box. Smooth brown wood screwed into a soft velvet bottom that's no larger than a DVD case. He runs his finger over the cool surface and Amelia's hand tightens gently on his leg and they handed him a box and these people are sorry for his loss and it's policy to wheel patients out of the building and they handed him a box and if he could just sit in the chair so they could get him outside and there's a box in his lap and it's cool brown wood and is his stomach upset this is all that's left of Dean there's this box that has what's left of him and Dean together and would he like some ginger ale and he thinks Amelia is crying and there's this box and everyone is so so sorry. 

 

Something in Sam snaps. Breaks in him like a worn string. The last tether to every emotion he's had in the last five months falls into a hole so deep it doesn't have a bottom. It's a nice, neat space that's been filling since Dean imploded and this is the last straw. Sam lids it. He closes off everything he's been feeling. 

 

He fucking salts and burns it in his mind. 

 

\----------

 

Amelia cries in the elevator. 

 

Sam doesn't remember how.

 

\----------

 

When they get to the front door, he asks Amelia if she knows any motels that allow pets. 

 

He doesn't look back.

 

\-----------

 

CHAPTER 3

 

\------------

 

Sam holes himself away in a small motel outside of town. One that has familiar smells and tables, that looks like home to him. There’s another lodge up the road that allows pets, but this one drew him in. 

 

It helps that Amelia is staying seven doors down. 

 

They often eat dinners together, sometimes lunch when she can get the time off. He doesn’t get much down, but it’s nice to have someone to talk to, to break up the never-ending silence of his double bedroom, every now and then. 

 

After a while, and a few questions as to where exactly he’s been getting his money with no obvious source of income, he takes on a job as motel maintenance. 

 

It’s easy. It’s safe. 

 

Riot seems happy enough, anyway. 

 

\---------

 

Sam fixes sinks. Dishwashers. Light fixtures and leaky windows. He changes the batteries in smoke detectors and catalogues damage done to bed frames and walls. 

 

He fixes things, then charges people for the damage. 

 

In his own room, however, Sam lets things fall slightly to disarray. There are chairs with uneven feet and his sink is always dripping. There’s an air vent that won’t stop rattling when he turns on the bathroom light. 

 

The small noises make him feel less alone. The broken pieces make it seem like someone’s there with him. 

 

\---------

 

In the bathroom he’s taken down the mirror. It had brown stains on it and there were chips in the corners of the frame, but mostly it showed his sunken in body. Sam looks like a skeleton wearing a skin suit. He’s a sack of walking organs. When he looks in the mirror all he can see are his bones and a chest that struggles to breathe. 

 

He sees his c-section scar. 

 

So he takes the mirror down. 

 

\---------

 

Amelia threatens to kick his ass if he doesn’t start taking care of himself. 

 

Sam finds out a week later, she really does have a pretty mean left hook. 

 

\---------

 

Box stays in the portable wall safe with his gun and Ruby’s knife. 

 

\---------

 

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want, Sam, it’s just-… I feel like I’m always talking and you’re just sitting- no, Sam Winchester you’re going to eat that whole sandwich if it kills you- and I kind of want to know more about you. A girl’s got needs you know, so stimulate me.” Amelia flashes him a smile and pushes her fries at him from across the table. 

 

“I’m not going to get out of this am I?” Sam means the food. 

 

Amelia shakes her head. “You’re a growing boy-“

 

“Of thirty.”

 

“A. Growing. Boy. Sam Winchester and you need to get your strength up. After what you’ve been thr-“ Then Amelia freezes and looks at her hands, which were up until that point gesticulating wildly between them.

 

She inhales sharply. Sam isn’t hungry anymore. 

 

“I mean. No, you don’t have to tell me anything it’s alright I’ll just go put these away and you can eat the rest later it’s no big deal.” Amelia stands and brushes her hands off on her pants. She’s halfway to the built-in kitchen when Sam chokes out Dean’s name. Amelia doubles back like he’s on fire. 

 

“What?”

 

“Dean. My brother’s name is Dean.”

 

“I don’t unders-“

 

“He’s dead. I lost him like you lost Don. Suddenly.”

 

“Oh.” 

 

They don’t talk until Sam leaves, and then it’s just to say goodbye. 

 

\---------

 

Amelia doesn’t ask about his life anymore, just waits for him to freely give up information. Information that’s so weighty and private, that Sam hasn’t been able to share with anyone besides Dean for years, that he has a panic attack the instant his door clicks shut after he tells her he loves Pearl Jam. 

 

It seems ridiculous, but Sam can’t help but feel like telling her his favorite color is like giving away nuclear access codes. Like he’s giving her the knife she’ll use against him in a week’s time, maybe a month or a year, but eventually it’ll gut him all the same and he’ll have lost another person in his life. 

 

It feels like he’s going to die.

 

\---------

 

Sam doesn’t die. 

 

Instead, things slow down and speed up at the same time. He and Amelia buy a house together, one with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. It has a big backyard for Riot and a living room with a huge window facing the front. 

 

At first Sam feels so out of place he can’t stand it. There’s too much room and not enough. He unpacks her things and throws his duffle in a room. They switch eventually though, because Amelia’s not a morning person and the sun rises on the left side of the house, so he gives Amelia the right. 

 

They buy Sam a bed and sheets. 

 

Sam has his own drawers, his own closet. 

 

Then it’s been two weeks and they’ve moved into a house together. 

 

It feels like ten years. 

 

Sam wonders if he’s dreaming. 

 

\---------------

 

He and Amelia don’t sleep together, contrary to popular belief. They’re an ideal couple to all their neighbors. They have a house and a dog and are happy. 

 

But they don’t have sex. He doesn’t think either of them could stomach it really. 

 

\---------------

 

By the end of the first month, Sam’s gotten pretty used to the idea of Normal. Of Safe. 

 

The only supernatural proofing in the whole house is around Box, hidden under his bed. He’s surrounded Box in a ring of salt and silver; sat Box on a Devil’s Trap the size of a dinner plate. There’re the hoodoo protection charms he remembers from the haunted mansion up north, some new ones he picked up over the years as well. Some Norse runes, some Egyptian spells. 

 

He angel proofs Box and sets up a wire-trigger to set off a few exploding rounds for any humans with sticky fingers. 

 

Nothing is touching his kid. 

 

\--------------

 

Sam only thinks about killing himself once. 

 

It’s before Amelia’s dad but after the call about Don and Sam’s might’ve had too much to drink to be making any decisions about life or death at the moment. 

 

But he’s been to hell, can do again. Probably will end up there when he goes the final time, so he’s not too worried about pain. 

 

Sam knows pain. 

 

He gets in the Impala with his gun and rests it on his thighs. 

 

He wonders if Dean would’ve had a bigger problem with the bloodstains or the dog hair. 

 

It’s a pretty obvious answer, really. 

 

Amelia is supposed to be at work, thinking about what to do now that Don’s back in the picture. Riot’s with her, always goes to the office to sniff around during the day and Sam got his first tax letter in over ten years this morning. It was nondescript and to the point. Somehow it caught him by surprise. 

 

He always thought Dean’d be by his side when it came, that big brother would make a crude joke about Big Brother. 

 

Or they’d both be dead. 

 

Instead it’s on a Tuesday in the middle of a home he owns and he has curtains and a living room and a dresser all his own. 

 

Then Amelia’s slapping her palm on the Impala’s window, a bunch of smacks in quick succession. Sam sees her face change from playful to frantic in a split-second. 

 

He wonders why she’s home so early.

 

\----------

 

Amelia had forgotten her stethoscope and she always hates using other people’s instruments. The earpieces are cesspools of disease and ‘why would I want someone else’s earwax in my ears Sam? It’s unsanitary.’

 

She yells at him for an hour. She cries and pulls at her hair and her face does this nervous twitch she has when she’s upset. Amelia calls him selfish and how could he do this to himself? How does he think she’d feel if she had to find him in that car? This can’t be about Don because you’re not that stupid Sam; I know you’re not. You’re a good person how could you! I love you, you idiot and I don’t want you to die!

 

Sam can only nod. He really is very sorry. 

 

The feelings he has these days are so few and in between. He tries to remember, but he doesn’t even know why he was suicidal in the first place. 

 

\---------------

 

Amelia locks the bathroom cabinets. She takes his gun. She hides the knives. Amelia’s locked him out of the garage and the Impala alike. 

 

“You won’t go to the hospital right?”

 

Sam nods.

 

“Well then we’re not going to give you a reason to.”

 

\-----------------

 

When Amelia’s father visits, no one mentions why they eat dinner with spoons.

 

\----------------


	2. Riot Gear 2/3

CHAPTER 4

 

\----------------

 

Don shows up not long after Amelia’s father leaves. He’s sick, he’s tired and he wants his wife back. 

 

He doesn’t ask Sam to move out right away. Sam stays another month and a half, mucking around and trying hard to stay out of their way. Honestly he feels like he’s walking on eggshells half the time with how awkward things are sometimes between him and Don. The man clearly suspects something between him and Amelia, despite any protest from either of them. 

 

But he’s a decent man who respects Sam for honest work, for taking care of Amelia while he was gone (in any capacity it seems) and Sam feels a growing level of friendly affection towards him. 

 

He’s still relieved though, when Don sits him down in the kitchen and tells it to him straight. 

 

He wants to buy Sam’s share of the house off of him and won’t take no for an answer. Don claps a hand on his shoulder and says it’s been hard to reconnect with Amelia since he came back. Being together, just the two of them, will really help. They were trying to become parents for a short while before Don enlisted and they might be ready to try again with a little time. Sam tells him he thinks his bedroom would make a great nursery. 

 

Don just wants things to go back to the way they were. 

 

Sam can’t blame him. 

 

\-----------------

 

When Amelia finds out she’s livid. 

 

Sam’s just finished packing his things. He’s got Box tucked away safely in the backseat of the Impala and he’s got one foot out the door. When she gets to him he’s gently leading Riot away from his leg because ‘no, they’re not going for a walk boy, go back inside,’ before she’s storming into his space. She’s a woman on a mission. 

 

“Don threatened you didn’t he?” she demands, “He’s getting rid of you and you’re just taking it!”

 

“No. He’s right. You two need time alone and I’m getting in the way of that. I’d probably ask for the same if it were me.” 

 

“But Sam. I-… I’m worried about you.” She’s in his space now and he can’t not hug her. So he does. He pulls her close and whispers in her hair. 

 

“You always worry.”

 

“Constantly.”

 

She’s crying and he’s trying hard not to. 

 

She makes him promise to write.

 

\----------------

 

Sam’s sleeping in the Impala’s back seat, at a truck stop in some backwater town in Missouri, when an unknown number pops up on his phone. 

 

It’s Dean. 

 

\------------------

 

Sam throws up twice on his way to Rufus’ cabin. 

 

The first time, he’s driving smoothly until a tidal wave of nausea almost throws him off the road. He’s got his head out the window and is hanging bodily from the car, trying to aim away from the sleek paint job. 

 

The second is next to the Rufus’ property line. It’s just shy of being visible to the cabin’s windows and Sam really just wants to stop shaking before he gets to the front door. 

 

He wonders if Dean will be able to tell anything’s different about him. 

 

\------------------

 

Sam doesn't know what to expect when he first sees Dean. Sometimes, when he was lying alone in scratchy motel sheets or when the sun was peaking through the blinds of his bedroom window, he would let himself think what would happen if Dean was alive. If he hadn't long since become a pile of organs and black, slimy Dick. He pictures heartfelt reunions that involve a lot of hugging and tears and seem so out of character for either one of them that he often found himself chuckling into his pillow. 

 

He imagines it'd be something like when Dean came back from Hell. Or when Sam's body made a return trip. Then his soul. It would be fast and painless. Like ripping a band-aid off the gaping wound that somehow became their relationship.

 

He thinks... he really doesn't know what to think. He doesn't know what he's going to get. 

 

This time, at least. 

 

\------------ 

 

What Sam gets is a face full of holy water and borax. Dean’s cutting him before Sam’s head has even stopped spinning. 

 

Dean’s alive. 

 

Dean’s alive and almost vibrating in his skin. He’s wound up so tightly, Sam thinks he might snap any minute and take everything in the cabin with him. 

 

For the first time in a while, Sam’s on edge. He doesn’t feel safe. 

 

He doesn’t like it. 

 

\-----------------

 

It doesn’t take long for Dean to figure out Sam wasn’t looking for him. He’s wrong about some details but Sam doesn’t correct him. He doesn’t say he looked for months, that he didn’t sleep half the time looking for connections who knew connections who heard a story from a ghost ten years back. He doesn’t say it was only these last six months that he’s settled down. 

 

“Was it for a girl? You left me to die for some girl?”

 

Sam thinks back to his aching back and swollen feet, to feeling tired all the time and feeling fifty years older than he actually was. He thinks of demons with southern accents and golden hair. He thinks about trying to get the constant taste of vomit out of his mouth and swearing off booze and turning down every opportunity to get fucked up because he was protecting something important. 

 

He thinks about Riot. 

 

He thinks about the blood and Box and how completely, utterly shit he is at taking care of anything worth saving. 

 

He doesn’t say anything and it’s not exactly a lie. 

 

It could’ve just as easily been a boy.

 

\---------------

 

CHAPTER 5

 

\----------------

 

Dean won’t touch him. 

 

Dean won’t brush their arms together when they walk, won’t hold his hand beneath diner tables, won’t kiss him in the privacy of their motel room. 

 

He won’t sleep in the same bed as Sam. 

 

Dean barely speaks to him. 

 

\----------------

 

They find Kevin Tran. 

 

\----------------

 

Dean berates Sam no less than every day, but no more than every moment Dean’s awake, which is quite a bit more than it was before he went under.

 

It’s like the journey to Kevin is Sam’s own, personal guilt trip. 

 

He gets it. He’s a shit brother and a shit friend. He couldn’t protect one measly prophet and now he has even more blood on his hands. 

 

He’s happy Kevin’s not dead, though. He thinks that’s a plus. 

 

\----------------

 

Dean doesn’t calm down. He doesn’t take five or a breather and lose some of the wild energy he’s been carrying since he got back. 

 

He takes a little of it out on suspects, a little more on the supernatural. 

 

He takes a lot of it out on Sam. 

 

It’s little things and big things. It’s making fun of Sam’s shoes ("Those aren’t meant for a catwalk let alone a hunt”) to the food he eats (“Organic? Seriously? There are people dying here Sam. Grab a burger and go.”). It’s Dean reading his emails and his commenting on Sam’s applications to school (and Sam can feel those weeks of gentle persuasion from Amelia and the recommendation letter from his boss swim down the drain with the click shut of his laptop). 

 

It’s telling Sam to his face Dean doesn’t trust him. 

 

It’s Dean leaving for a night off. 

 

It’s Sam finding out about Benny. 

 

\---------------

 

Sam doesn’t like Benny the minute he shakes his hand. The second he feels cold, clammy skin brush against his he’s reaching for his knife and Dean’s shaking his head, ‘no’. 

 

Then Benny opens his mouth to speak and if he didn’t think Dean would shoot him on the spot Sam would’ve ganked Benny then and there. 

 

He would’ve drawn it out. He would’ve made it hurt. 

 

Benny’s from the fucking Bayou and he’s like a brother to Dean. 

 

He’s never let Dean down, apparently. 

 

Sam waits until Dean’s asleep before he gets in the shower. Even though Dean thinks he’s gone soft in the last year, his ability to sneak around undetected is as sharp as ever. He closes the bathroom door to the sound of Dean’s snoring. 

 

He turns the water on full blast and crumples to the dirty tiled floor. He bites his arm and screams into his jacket. 

 

He tastes his own blood and all he gets is another reminder of Benny the Friendly Neighborhood Vampire. In his head he sees Dean pat Benny on the shoulder while Sam waits by the Impala. He hears Benny call Dean, ‘Brother’.

 

Sam hears a demon barter for his child over breakfast like it’s nothing more than a poker chip. 

 

He screams until, all of a sudden he's laughing, because isn't this perfect? Dean's finally got the brother he's wanted all along. 

 

If Dean’s concerned about the circles under Sam’s eyes the next day, or that he’s wearing the same clothes as the day before, he doesn’t say anything.

 

\-----------

 

CHAPTER 6 

 

\-------------

 

Garth somehow has a way of making everything seem better, even while he’s fucking up massively on any given hunt. 

 

He looks up to Dean in the same way he looked up to Bobby, Sam thinks. 

 

Sam, on the other hand, is still that guy who started the apocalypse and went off the rails for a year. Soulless, foaming at the mouth kind of crazy isn’t always idol material. 

 

Still, Garth offers him a shoulder and even though he brushes it off he’s feeling better than he has in weeks. He’s still pissed that Dean’s been pulling his warped justifications out at every turn. Like Purgatory trumps everything; trumps killing Amy and any sacrifice Sam has ever made for Dean. Like Dean may be a fuck up, but Sam’s a failure and a traitor and a coward. 

 

Like Sam is no brother of Dean’s. 

 

But by the end of the day, they’ve got a lead on the specter and Garth can be pretty funny when you pay attention. 

 

Sam thinks things might be looking up. 

 

\-----------------

 

Dean gets possessed. 

 

Sam’s a handful of punches in before Dean uses some move he learned in Purgatory to knock Sam off and onto the floor. 

 

‘This is it,’ Sam thinks. He lets his body relax during Dean’s tirade. 

 

He’s just so fucking tired. 

 

\-----------------

 

Garth turns out to be one Zen motherfucker. He could work as a negotiator for the FBI if he wanted to. Sam would definitely give him a reference.

 

But out of Sam’s exhaustion, somewhere, came rage. It was a short burst, but it was enough to get Dean to back off. 

 

Sam knows he was bluffing when he said he’d leave for good if Dean didn’t give it up. Deep down he’s afraid Dean will replace him with Benny and forget Sam ever existed. 

 

It sort of feels like it’s happening anyway. 

 

\---------------

 

Cas comes back and Dean’s cold exterior cracks for the second time. He won’t spare Sam a glance to ask for the salt, would probably just reach over and take it rather than ask Sam for a pass at all since he's been hell bent on ignoring Sam since Sam's blow up, but the instant Cas appears in the bathroom Dean’s gone gooey eyed. 

 

Or as gooey eyed as Dean can really get. 

 

There’s talk of monsters and Purgatory and how Sam will never understand pain and struggle and blood like they do. Dean’s saved Benny, who’s saved Cas, who’s saved Dean. The human, the angel and the vampire are all blood brothers and Sam is just some guy watching from the outside. 

 

Everything Sam says might as well go unheard. Dean’s in his own world and Cas showing up just reinforces the wall between him and Sam. Anything Sam says rebounds off and falls flat in front of him. 

 

It’s like screaming into an abyss and Sam just gives up after a while. 

 

\---------------

 

They find the prophets. 

 

Dean and Cas have their moment. 

 

Sam helps wrangle terrified men and women in their forties. He gently manhandles a young toddler onto his hip and somehow parses enough in hand gestures to get a confused Italian out of the warehouse. He calls Garth to pick up the Trans. He calls state police to check up on the mass of bodies left in their wake. He dumps demons and cleans Mrs. Tran’s car of evidence. 

 

He finds Kevin’s finger. 

 

Everyone looks at him like this is somehow his fault. 

 

He supposes it probably is.

 

\--------------

 

CHAPTER 7 

 

\---------------

 

It all comes to a head when Dean throws away Box. 

 

Sam’s gone for the entire morning, first to get food (which he dumped on the table while Dean was in the shower), then to the library to research a haunting in a local Arkansas brewery. 

 

When he gets back Dean is leaning against the bathroom doorframe wearing his old pre-Purgatory jacket. The one Box had been wrapped in, hidden under a pile of laundry in a duffle in the trunk of the Impala. There are screws on Dean’s bedside table and Box’s velvet bottom is lying on the cover of his bed. 

 

Sam’s heart stops. 

 

He drops the books he was carrying in the doorway and nearly trips over them to pick up the screws as carefully as he can. He’s only found three when Dean speaks to him from across the room. 

 

“So you’ll never guess what I found, Sammy.” Dean pushes off the doorjamb and starts moving towards Sam. His voice is accusatory, laced with the same anger he had when Sam was still drinking demon blood, “Not keeping secrets right? You were totally honest with me? Then what the hell was in that box? Some hoodoo coke you’re carrying around in my baby? What have you gotten yourself into this time while I was fighting for my life! Again! I swear every time you selfish son of a bi-“

 

“What’d you do with the rest of it Dean?” Sam’s voice is quiet. He can barely hear himself over the roaring in his ears. Dean doesn’t hear him at all.

 

“-tch! Why can’t I trust you anymore Sammy? I’ve got half a mind to go find Benny and saddle up with him! Leave you to fuck up your own life and not have to have me dig you out every single time!”

 

“Dean! Where. The fuck. Did you put the rest of it!” 

 

Dean stops short. This is the loudest Sam’s been since Cas showed up and he looks blindsided for a moment before he puts his hands in his pockets and shrugs. 

 

“What’d you think I did with it Sam? I threw it away. Kept the bottom though. I need some new screws for the EMF meter and that velvet might sell for somet-“ 

 

“WHERE DID YOU THROW IT OUT DEAN!” Sam’s got him by the collar and for the first time in ages he doesn’t feel his body protest the harsh strain. He lifts Dean clear off the floor and against the wall without batting an eye. 

 

Dean kicks out, tries to punch Sam in the stomach, the solar plexus. He lands his marks and Sam feels absolutely nothing. 

 

This is what an adrenaline rush feels like for 6 feet, 4 inches of pure muscle. 

 

Dean doesn’t stand a chance. 

 

“Where.” Sam’s not asking. 

 

“It’s out back damnit! I tossed the dirt and threw the box in a dumpster!”

 

Sam is totally justified in punching Dean until the other man is unconscious. 

 

He settles for breaking Dean’s jaw before the man’s on his ass and Sam’s out the door to the back. He’s got the screws and velvet in hand and he can’t breathe and he can’t find which fucking dumpster there are five of them and fuck fuck fuck where did Dean drop Box’s ashes? There’s only grass for miles and a few trees in the distance and Sam has no idea how he’s going to scrape up anything if Dean scattered them and how is he going to get the bottom back onto the wood if he’s only got three of the screws – 

 

Then Sam sees the lake.

 

\---------------

 

It’s small enough to even be a pond, sitting quietly in between two oak trees about a hundred yards from the back of the motel. There are children with their families and their feet are in the water and Sam is lurching towards the picnic they’ve set up before he can think. 

 

He drops to his knees next to a ginger kid and asks if a man came by and threw something into the water. 

 

“Yeeeaaahhhh. It was kinda gross. Kinda like when my mom cleans out the vacuum filter in the sink. It went everywhere man! Like, a cloud! Then he threw something into the green dumpster over there and went back inside and-… Hey… Mister, are you ok?”

 

\------------

 

Sam’s aware of a few things. 

 

First, Ginger Kid and his family are nowhere in sight anymore. They’ve just picked up and moved away from him in the blink of an eye. Sam can’t remember seeing them leave. 

 

Second, he’s somehow managed to lose some of his hair. There are clumps of it in his hands and he’s got this aching pain in his neck from where he’s hunched over onto the grass and he’s sure his back is going to hurt like hell tomorrow. 

 

He can also hear someone screaming. It’s coming through pretty soft though, like it’s miles down the road. He can’t see anyone because for some reason his face is in the dirt, but he’s sure someone is yelling like a skinned cat. It reminds him of a banshee he and Dean ganked when they were in their early twenties. The thing screamed bloody murder, but Dean got it in its throat and… Dean stabbed it in the ne… Dean got rid of… He got rid… 

 

Things pick up pretty quickly after that. 

 

Sam’s on the ground and he’s screaming into the murky water in front of him. He feels blood and sweat on his forehead. He’s got skin and hair in between his fingers and he digs his nails back into his scalp and pulls. He pulls until he feels something and he wants to feel that sharpness because it will distract from the hollow feeling in his chest. He can’t feel anything in his body anymore. He’s a giant black hole and he’s screaming his essence out of his mouth and his whole body is falling apart. He can’t breathe. He’s got dirt in his lungs and Dean threw away Box. He threw Box into the pond at a backwater motel in the middle of Arkansas and there were kids kicking his ashes around their dirty feet and throwing their bottles into his water and Dean threw away Box. He threw him away and Sam can’t get him back, not even a small part of him, because Dean threw him away. 

 

Dean threw away Box. 

 

Dean threw away everything.

 

\------------

 

Sam’s body is still screaming even when his voice cannot. It’s just whispers of air around his broken vocal chords and he couldn’t stop crying if he tried. 

 

The sun’s gone down and Cas is there. 

 

Sam feels hands pulling him away from Box’s lake and he pushes and kicks, throws punches at whatever he can because he’s not leaving his child. He’s not going anywhere ever again. 

 

There are fingers to his right temple and everything goes black.

 

\-------------

 

Sam wakes up on his side, facing an unfamiliar window. It’s not the window of the motel he woke up to that morning with two panes of glass instead of four and for a second Sam’s body jerks upright, gauging his surroundings. 

 

He’s been moved. 

 

He’s so momentarily preoccupied by the thought of being kidnapped (at his age, really it’s sad) that it’s like a freight train to his head when he sees a cool brown wooden box in pieces on the kitchenette table. The velvet bottom is to its side and the three screws are in an ashtray next to that. 

 

Sam’s out of bed so fast he trips over the bed covers and cracks his elbow on the floor. Box’s shell is in his hands next, huddled close to his chest. Box leaves an imprint on his skin. 

 

Sam feels so, unbelievably cold. 

 

\--------------

 

They’re in Louisiana. 

 

They’re by Benny. 

 

Cas is always in the room. 

 

Sam won’t talk to Dean. He won’t talk to anyone. 

 

He wants to die. 

 

\--------------

 

As it turns out, while Dean expects respect towards his phone, his gun, his things, the same rules do not apply to Sam. 

 

It’s the same as it’s always been. 

 

So Sam’s not really all that surprised when a week later Dean says he’s called Amelia. 

 

Sam just grips Box and stares at the wall. He’s been in bed on his side so long he might be getting bedsores. He doesn’t want to move. 

 

“So. Pregnant huh?” Dean starts out, sitting on his own bed and talking to Sam’s back, “Never would’ve guessed. And I had to find out from that Amelia chick you were seeing, man. I mean, I was gone long enough. Can’t blame a guy for wanting to move on,” Sam can almost see the slouch of Dean’s shoulders, the way he puts his elbows on his knees and looks ashamed. He can see Dean looking to Cas across the room for moral support. Or at least, he can see the old Dean doing that. This man is not someone Sam knows. This is not his brother anymore.

 

“-but really Sammy. Pregnant. Wow. I’m-…” Dean chokes off something and Sam knows he’s trying to apologize. 

 

Dean can go fuck himself.

 

“But you can’t blame me for thinking the worst you know. I’m sorry I… did, what I did. But you’ve got history with that kind of shit man and I’m just-… I.” Dean swallows, “I’m sorry.”

 

Sam holds Box. He stares at the wall. 

 

“Do you… Did-… Did you contact the other father? Does he know?”

 

‘It’s amazing’ Sam thinks, ‘where the human body gets its strength’ because wouldn’t you know it, he is capable of sitting up. He’s capable of putting Box down and pulling the covers back.

 

He’s capable of pushing Dean down and getting his hands around the bastard’s neck. Of screaming in his face. 

 

Of feeling. 

 

“Where do you get off?! How do you think you have any right to lecture me right now?! It was YOUR. CHILD. You dumb asshole! Your baby! That you ripped open and threw into a pond while I was getting you food! While I was doing research for you and your stupid mission against everything supernatural except for fucking Benny! It was your. Fucking. Baby!” 

 

Cas manages to pull him off and eventually he gets enough footing to beat them both back until he’s standing by the television and panting like he’s run a marathon. 

 

Dean’s pale and stricken. He looks like Sam’s punched him in the chest. 

 

“My?”

 

Sam nods. Then Dean’s on his feet and he’s sidestepping Cas to get to Sam. He punches Sam in the eye and holds him down. 

 

“Why didn’t you tell me!? What the fuck is wrong with you, you selfish jackass!?”

 

Sam’s on him then. He grips him by the collar and slams Dean’s head into the floor with a satisfying crack, “I’m selfish? Take a good long look in the mirror Dean! I’ve been taking your shit – No! Cas you stay away from us right now. Get the fuck out! – I’ve been taking your shit for months now Dean! All I get is what a horrible brother I’ve been! How you can’t trust me! When I’ve done everything you asked. I’ve been to hell for you too Dean! I’ve given up Normal more times than I can count, for YOU Dean! I put up with your psychotically suicidal vendetta against the leviathans for killing Bobby and I cleaned up your messes when you fucked up, just like you did mine! I came running like a dog when you called to save that jackass bloodsucker!”

 

\-------------

 

Dean tries to buck his brother off, but Sam smashes his head into the carpet once more for good measure. Sam grabs him by the throat, “No! You’re going to listen to me Dean. Really listen.

 

You know why I didn’t tell you? Because you came back so fucking angry Dean. You barely see me, let alone hear me! I might as well not be here. I’m only good as a punching bag or dead weight as far as you’re concerned. And I thought, ‘Hey, maybe when he calms down. Maybe when he remembers we’re supposed to love each other and that I’m the only brother he has. That he’s always been everything to me, even with Jess and school, Dean’s been my everything since the day I was born. He’ll see this is just another mistake I’ve made and I’ll tell him then,’ but you never stopped being angry with me Dean. I’m a selfish asshole? I looked for you, you dick! For months I researched. I chased after rumors people heard from ghosts of openings and gateways! I called Death and went to fucking voicemail! I stopped sleeping! I didn’t eat! It was all you and bringing you back, but you didn’t want to hear it.

 

I looked for you even when demons started following me, Dean. They wanted our baby. They wanted to trade, because everyone knows the Abomination is weak for demons. And then a handful in… I-… I hit Riot with the Impala and passed out in Amelia’s office…” 

 

Sam sits back on his heals. 

 

“When I woke up they’d already taken him out.”

 

\----------------

 

Sam feels like jello. His entire body has gone jellyfish limp and all he can do is wait for Dean to come back. 

 

When he’d run out of steam, Dean had jerked out from under him, taken the keys to the Impala and walked out the door. Sam heard him pull away seconds later. Cas was still standing in a corner like a pole before Sam asked him to leave. 

 

Now Sam’s alone. 

 

He’s been in the same spot for who knows how long. 

 

It’s dark out when he falls asleep.

 

\-----------

 

CHAPTER 8

 

\-------------

 

Dean comes back after two days. 

 

Sam’s still waiting for him because he just doesn’t care anymore. 

 

He’s watching a Bewitched marathon on one of the two channels the room gets with Box tucked safely under his arm, when a burger is thrust under his nose with the order to eat. 

 

Sam takes a few bites and stops. He hasn’t been eating, he realizes. He wonders if someone else noticed that before he did. 

 

Dean inhales his burger and patiently waits until Sam’s had enough, then gently coaxes Sam until he’s eaten about half. Sam really can’t get more down. 

 

They turn off the TV and Sam lies Box over his thighs. 

 

“So. My kid.” Dean says, eyeing Box. He looks tired and remorseful; sick, like he just realized what a shithead he’s been and then magnified it by a thousand. 

 

Sam thinks it’s still an understatement. 

 

“When did you find out?”

 

Sam is quiet. 

 

“Come on Sammy, please? I know I don’t deserve it, but just… please?”

 

Sam takes a breath and counts to three, then ten, then three again. When he lets it go, he says, “A week before Dick. I was already two weeks along.”

 

Dean nods, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“I-… I just thought you had so much going on with me losing my mind and Bobby, with finding out how to gank Dick and with Cas going nuts… it…. It was a rough year.” Sam rubs his hand over his face and tries to fight the pounding in his temples, “I wanted it to be a surprise. A ‘Hey, we killed the baddie and you’re gonna be a daddy’ kind of deal… I wanted you to not have to worry about me anymore than you already were and I thought, if we survived…” Sam huffs out a laugh, sad and heavy, “I thought maybe we could be happy.”

 

Dean went very still while Sam was talking. He doesn’t move an inch and Sam gets a good look in. 

 

Dean looks awful. His hair is mess and he smells like he fell into a whiskey vat. He’s got blood on his shirt and his knuckles are split open. There’s a gash on his forehead that looks like it might be infected. 

 

Sam can see bruises in the shape of his fingers around Dean’s throat. 

 

He doesn’t look like he slept either.

 

“So how did you…” Dean waves his hand in a circular motion over his belly, “You know.”

 

“I passed out in the vet’s office after I hit Riot with the Impala. I’d been feeling sick earlier when I ganked a demon and I just really needed to lie down. Then everything sort of… fell out.”

 

Dean nods.

 

“So demons? They were after you?”

 

“No. Box. The baby. They wanted him.”

 

“You know why?”

 

Sam’s voice goes cold. “I didn’t ask.”

 

“Sorry. Sorry… what’d they want to trade you for?”

 

“At first it was to get Kevin back. They would give the prophet, sans tablet, for the baby when it was due.” Sam sighs, “Then when they lost Kevin it was either give up the baby or Kevin. Bring one in and I’d get to keep the other in exchange.” 

 

Sam looks Dean in the eye then, “That’s why I turned off my phones. I didn’t want anything to do with Kevin. I just couldn’t with what they were offering; I couldn’t know where he was or what he was doing. I knew he’d be fine. I didn’t want the temptation to trade him just to be left alone. So… I turned them off and I gave him up. I knew at first he had to be alive because the third demon was more desperate than the second, then they told me I had to get him back. 

 

Then the vet happened and it stopped mattering.”

 

Dean’s breathing into his hands at this point. Sharp jagged breaths that make his whole back tremble, like he’s trying to hold back tears. Sam fingers Box’s edges and traces the inner linings of his container. He keeps gaze on Dean. 

 

“Dean. If they’d offered me you, I-“ Dean’s eyes shoot up to meet his, “… I would’ve traded in a second.” Sam tightens his grasp on his knee where his hand has fallen, “But they didn’t know. They had no idea where you were.” 

 

Dean looks like he’s weighing what Sam said and really, he looks like he can’t believe it. Sam doesn’t know how it can still come as a shock to Dean how important he is to Sam. 

 

“Why didn’t you tell me when I got back? Why’d you let me treat you like that?”

 

“You were angry, Dean, and I just thought if I let you get through it. If you’d work through whatever had you so pissed. And… I thought about telling you how hard I looked. But it was like I wasn’t even there half the time and when I did talk you just didn’t want to hear it, like you’d already decided before you saw me that I hadn’t tried to find you and you wanted to be angry at me. And I thought…”

 

Dean risks grabbing Sam’s free hand and holds it tightly. 

 

Sam lets him.

 

“I thought if you found out what I’d done – that I couldn’t even do this one thing right – that you’d leave for good. And then I found out you had Benny and… I was scared.” Sam takes a deep breath, “I thought, at least you’re just angry with me. At least you didn’t hate me like you would if you knew what a shitty failure I am.”

 

Dean’s pulling him in then and Sam falls onto a firm chest that smells like body spray and liquor, like life and death and sorrow all wrapped up in one. 

 

Sam cries into Dean’s chest and Dean cries into Sam’s hair. 

 

Box is pressed between them, corner pieces connecting them like family. 

 

They don’t sleep.

 

\-------------

 

CHAPTER 9

 

\-------------

 

Dean stops going on hunts. They stop following demons and after one particularly colorful call with the Trans (“No. We’re not- fuck, no. Kevin, I get that you’re- just stop for a second. No we’re not- no. Don’t put her on th- Hi, Mrs. Tran. Yes, Mrs. Tran. I understand Kevin is your- no. Sam’s my brother, I get it just- okay shut up! We’re not doing anything for a while so just stay out of trouble, don’t hire anyone off Craig’s List and don’t die! Christ!”), they’ve stopped doing anything productive altogether. 

 

Instead, Dean focuses his energy on Sam. He starts by force-feeding him. It’s gentle, but there’s no room for argument that Sam is going to finish every bite of everything Dean puts in front of him. He’s not sure how much weight he’s lost, but he looks almost as bad as when he lost Box the first time. 

 

Dean’s behavior regarding Sam’s food reminds him of late nights at a motel kitchenette right after he was released from the hospital. Of hours-long attempts at getting him to finish a whole sandwich. To finish something other than scotch or beer. He’s not sure when Dean’s nurturing side started to remind him of Amelia instead of the other way around. 

 

The food, though, is where Dean’s similarities to Amelia end. He puts the hammer down hard in regards to Sam in every other way. 

 

Sam is totally taken aback at the sudden change in Dean’s attention to him. It’s almost like when Sam was four again, when Dean would make his food and let him choose what they watched on TV. 

 

Except now Dean monitors his Internet access and hovers constantly. He insists on standing in the bathroom while Sam showers to make sure he doesn’t fall and crack his head open. Sam nips that in the bud quick enough by pushing Dean out the door and jamming the lock, yelling that even when he was locked up in the loony bin they let him take showers alone (though really it was with the door wide open and he wasn’t allowed to use a razor, but the point remains).

 

It makes Sam feel like he’s back in a locked psych ward, except instead of seeing Lucifer whenever he turns around it’s Dean. 

 

Dean won’t even let him leave the motel room without an escort for fear that he might disappear altogether and Sam isn’t so far gone that he doesn’t see the irony in that. Sam’s tempted to leave anyway, just pack up Box and go, to let Dean feel the fear that’s been in Sam’s gut ever since Dean got back.

 

It would probably be doable if Dean didn’t ask Cas to stand watch at night while they sleep only to dismiss him in the morning and take up the post himself. 

 

It’s the high-strung behavior though, that lets Sam know Dean’s worried; that he’s trying the best he can; he’s just doing a piss poor job in the execution.

 

The marathon drinking sessions have picked up again and Sam sometimes finds himself pouring whole bottles of liquor down the drain when Dean’s not looking. It’s almost like when dad died. 

 

Sam waits it out, for his own sanity more than anything. He doesn’t want to see what Dean would do if he protested. Besides, he has a sneaking suspicion that one false move from him will snap Dean out of his mother-bear mentality and back to ripping Sam a new one at any moment. 

 

This is Dean feeling guilty. So Sam tries to put up with it. 

 

Still, Dean may be trying, but Sam doesn’t budge on keeping Box at his side at all times. He doesn’t let Box out of his sight. Even with Dean’s newfound iron-fist-mothering, as much as Sam hates to admit it, every time Dean comes anywhere near Box, his chest clenches up painfully. He doesn’t trust Dean as far as he can throw him.

 

\--------------

 

Sam’s patience with Dean’s behavior breaks, as anyone’s would with this treatment. He might be a little terrified at what Dean will do when he tells him to back off, but really, a man can only tolerate so much. 

 

“Dean, we have to talk.”

 

Sam’s just finished his shower. He comes out fully clothed. Box, who was wrapped in a towel and waiting on the toilet lid for him, is under his arm when he bumps into Dean right outside the door. 

 

“This has to stop. You can’t wait with your ear pressed up against the door every time I have a shower. And you know what? You can’t make me stay here if I want to go out. I’m sick and tired of being kept here like a criminal just because you feel like shit.”

 

Dean turns his back on Sam and stomps over to the kitchen to pour himself two fingers of scotch. He downs it in one go. “No can do Sammy. It’s like I can’t leave you alone anymore without shit hitting the fan.”

 

“Yes you can Dean. I don’t need you to hold my hand every minute of every day. I did fine without you for years at college-“

 

“That was ten years ago!”

 

“-And I’ll be fine alone for an hour without needing medical intervention! I’m not a child, Dean, so stop treating me like one!”

 

“Well what am I supposed to do Sam? You say you’ll be fine by yourself, but if history tells me anything about you, it’s that if I leave you for one second I’m going to come back and find you half dead!”

 

“You’re wrong Dean! I-“

 

“No! You’re wrong Sam. I go away and everything with you falls apart! Just look what happened this time!”

 

Sam knows he’s got his mouth gaping open like a fish, but he doesn’t know what to say to that. He tightens his grip on Box through the motel towel. It’s thin enough that he can still feel the dent from where Box hit the dumpster’s metal bottom. He can trace the newly acquired cracks and chips with his fingers like he used to with the scars on Dean’s skin, way back when Dean used to sleep next to him; when he had no problem letting his guard down in Sam’s presence. 

 

“That’s-… Sam.” Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, “Look. I just… I don’t know what to do here, man. You’re different and I’m different. I’m trying to deal with this, but I have no idea how to do it. And…” Dean trails off, looking at Box with more pain on his face than Sam’s ever seen on him before; there’s more than when he was ripped to shreds by hellhounds, than when he’d been shot or stabbed. More than, even, when Sam bashed his face in and jumped into The Pit. 

 

It’s a different kind of hurt than something physical, Sam supposes. 

 

He can definitely relate. 

 

“It’s obvious I’m not doing this right. But… Sam,” Dean takes a step forward and Sam can’t help but respond by taking a step back. He didn’t think it was possible, but Dean’s expression crumbles even more. 

 

“Sam. I am so sorry. I can’t even tell you how much and… I wanna make this right.”

 

CHAPTER 10

 

\-----------

 

They stay in Louisiana for weeks. It’s long enough that the motel staff start to joke about them taking out a mortgage on the room. 

 

Sam insists Dean get a job to keep him from getting anymore cabin fever than he already has and partially to keep him from breathing down Sam’s neck at odd hours. 

 

Which is how Dean ends up mocking hungover men and women at the local impound when they come to retrieve their cars. 

 

Sam on the other hand, applies for a maintenance job at their motel and ends up with a new friendship with the owner, Mrs. Tanaka. She’s a sweet elderly woman who is almost always in a housecoat and just as frequently pestering Sam about letting her do his hair. She’s always forcing sesame candy on him in the hallways with a smile.

 

She says she wants to teach him how to cook. 

 

\-----------------

 

Dean starts to ease up on the prison guard act. Whenever Sam comes out of the bathroom he can see Dean’s stiff back bent over a book as he pretends he was reading instead of straining to hear through the thin bathroom wall. When Sam leaves the room to take a walk Dean’s shoulders tense up, but he doesn’t say anything to stop Sam from leaving. Sam’s almost positive Dean’s nervously cleaning their arsenal the entire time he’s gone, but he doesn’t say a word about it whenever Sam gets back. 

 

Dean makes his food, lets him choose what they watch on TV. 

 

He respects Sam’s request to steer clear of Box. 

 

\---------------

 

Sam’s in the bathroom when Benny calls.

 

Sam doesn’t know what the man wants, but he hears Dean through the door. His brother’s not even trying to whisper. 

 

“No man. I can’t come…. Yeah… No, I’m not going back on my word, I’ve just got something to do here… Yeah… Yeah, top priority… The most important thing I’ve ever done…”

 

When they’re settling down to bed later, Sam doesn’t even have to ask. Dean brings up the call all on his own. Something about an old hunter hanging around Benny's place of employment, but that he turned Benny down when he asked Dean to come and help. 

 

“Dean, he’s your friend. You should-“

 

“No, Sam. You’re more important. It took me a while to remember that, but… you and Box, you’re what matters. ”

 

\-------------

 

“Sam?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“None of this was your fault, you know that right?”

 

“Dean, don’t.”

 

“No. Sam. You have nothing to be sorry for, tell me you get that.”

 

“I don’t… Dean. I lost Box. I lied to you. You were in Purgatory because I couldn’t find a freaking portal-“

 

“I was in Purgatory because I was standing too close to a jackass when he blew up. Box didn’t make it because you were worn down from demons chasing you and from looking for me. You didn’t tell me the truth because I wouldn’t hear it. It was my decision to act like a dick. None of that is your fault. Say it for me.”

 

“But-“

 

“It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault.”

 

“Whatever you say Dean.”

 

\---------------

 

It’s 3:00 a.m. when Sam wakes up. 

 

He’s not sure Dean even went to sleep. He can see a near empty bottle of scotch on the bedside table and Dean’s under the covers, but his breathing is irregular, slightly hitching on every third or fourth breath. 

 

Sam doesn’t move. He stares up at the ceiling, traces a crack in the plaster as he waits in the dark for Dean’s chest to stop shaking in his peripheral vision. 

 

He runs his fingers over Box.

 

Car lights pass by the motel window. 

 

\---------------

 

“Dean?”

 

“Yeah Sam?”

 

“I understand why you were angry.”

 

“Sam-“

 

“You had no idea because you were angry and you had every right to be. I probably would’ve done the same things if I were you.”

 

“I’m supposed to protect yo-“

 

“And like you said, you were in Purgatory. There wasn’t much you could’ve done.”

 

“Sammy…”

 

“It’s not your fault either, Dean.”

 

\------------

 

CHAPTER 11 

 

\--------------

 

It’s been about almost two months since Sam’s latest mental breakdown when, at dinner one night, Dean drops the pizza they ordered (extra meat) on the table and nearly falls back into a chair.

 

Sam’s telling him about his conversation with Mrs. Tanaka, whom he’d caught up with in the laundry room. Apparently, her father’s spirit had stuck itself to an old suit jacket that she and her husband keep in their suite. Sam’s at the part where she laughed at him for five minutes when he started talking about the dangers of evil spirits (“My father’s not evil, Sam. The man just needs to learn to turn of the television when he’s done with it and to stop messing with my coffeemaker.”), when he turns around to grab utensils. When he turns back, peeling two paper plates apart as he does, he sees Dean staring sadly at Box where he’s sat on the table. 

 

Sam sits down and stares at Dean staring at Box.

 

He takes a breath. 

 

“You can…” Dean looks up at him and Sam swallows, “You can hold him. If you want.”

 

\----------------

 

Cas comes to visit. 

 

He says the Trans are still safe. Garth’s safe-houseboat seems to be supernatural resistant if you ignore one mermaid attack and a near-constant state of seasickness (Mrs. Tran will apparently be having words with them about that little problem). 

 

Cas explains that he’s been spending a good deal of his time in the dreams of an elderly man with Down’s Syndrome. 

 

He says he’s at peace. 

 

\----------------

 

Mrs. Tanaka and her friend Laura, a middle aged woman from Guatemala, corner Sam in the hallway one fateful Saturday and since then he’s been forced into reading up on the ‘proper’ uses of salt (“It’s for cooking, my dear. Don’t think I don’t know about your windows; it’s driving the cleaning staff insane, by the way. Now come with us. We’re going to find you a nice apron and then we’re making tonkatsu*!” (*AN: Japanese pork cutlet)). 

 

Sam’s sitting on his bed, reading a tome-sized, ancient cookbook Laura’s lent him, when Dean walks over, Sam’s cell phone in hand. He places it on the open page. 

 

Sam’s about to question him, when Dean cuts him off. He’s got a determined look about him, but he stares at Sam’s phone instead of Sam. He sounds tense.

 

“I think you should call Amelia. You miss her and… I know you haven’t called her because of me, so maybe just… say hi.”

 

Then he’s up and out the door, leaving Sam gaping at the paint where Dean’s retreating back used to be. 

 

\----------------

 

Amelia and Sam are on the phone for well over an hour. They talk about crazed motel-owner-cum-landladies forcing cooking lessons on unsuspecting guests. About Riot’s newfound interest in digging holes under the backyard fence and about Sam maybe coming back to Kermit for the holidays. 

 

They talk about Don and Sam’s seemingly wayward lover returning and calling her out of the blue.

 

They talk about baby names. 

 

Amelia’s going to be a mom.

 

\--------------

 

Sam and Dean leave the motel after three months. 

 

Mrs. Tanaka hugs Sam and cries into his shirt while Laura moves around Dean to shove, what looks like, a month’s worth of food into the backseat of the Impala. Then they switch off and while Sam has his arms full of sobbing Central American woman, Dean is being told to eat the food, or so help me God I will sic my dead father on you. 

 

“Take care of your brother. And yes, we packed you pie.”

 

\---------------- 

 

Things keep getting better. 

 

Sam’s gotten over flinching whenever Dean comes near him. 

 

Dean’s taken to holding Box whenever he can, treating the shell as carefully as he would an actual child. 

 

They even start to talk to each other like they did when they were kids. There’s no awkward fumbling for words for fear of enraging one another. It’s just simple. It’s free and easy. 

 

It doesn’t feel like his days with Dean are numbered anymore. 

 

Sam tries hard not to get his hopes up, but it’s hard. 

 

\---------------

 

They’ve been on the road a few weeks when, out of nowhere, Dean suggests they bury what’s left of Box by their mother’s grave.

 

“S’true Winchesters travel a lot, but we gotta settle down sometime. And at least he’d be with family.”

 

Sam smiles and calls him a sap. 

 

\------------------

 

He nearly chokes when Dean makes a detour in Arkansas to collect a jar of Box’s pond water before they drive to Illinois. 

 

\------------------

 

Box and his jar of water are neatly planted in front of Mary Winchester’s tombstone. 

 

“This is your grandchild, mom.” Sam says. He’s sitting on a cool patch of grass with Dean standing behind him, a hand on his shoulder. It feels good. It feels safe. Dean has been casually touching him every now and then since Louisiana and at first it made Sam recoil like he was burnt. 

 

But Dean kept it up and now they’re touching a handful of times a day. 

 

Sam thinks it’s nice. 

 

“What would you have named him? Box, I mean.” Dean says, surprisingly comfortable with calling their child Box the way Sam has been for months. 

 

“Dean, for a boy.” When Dean starts chuckling at his back, Sam feigns offense and half-heartedly nudges Dean’s hand off his shoulder, “What? Dean Jr. after his father! You were dead. I was going to honor you.”

 

“And what? Give it dad’s name as well? Call it Dean John? DJ for short?”

 

By now, Sam’s not even trying to hide his smile. “Who knows? I might have. Still can if I want.” 

 

Dean’s laughter quiets down slowly and he drops heavily next to Sam on the ground. 

 

“What about a girl then?”

 

Sam looks at his brother, sees the past, the present and the future all wrapped up in this one man next to him. He sees anger and lust, trust and hope and promise and says,

 

“I think I’d call her Mary.”

 

Dean slides his fingers in between Sam’s and smiles. Small, real and warm. 

 

“Yeah. Yeah that’s perfect.”


	3. Riot Gear 3/3

EPILOGUE

\-----------------

 

Sam doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to articulate how much he hates Christmas. It’s his second least favorite holiday right after Halloween, primarily because of the psychopaths that seem to crawl out of the woodwork. It makes the holiday season overtime for a hunter. 

 

This year it’s twelve screaming zombies, eleven spirits haunting, ten shifters shifting, nine vampires sucking, eight demons dealing, seven wraiths a’wraithing, six shots per morning (both kinds), five solid gold, live geese, four thousand football sized mutant mice, and three French hens, two squawking turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree all down one man’s greedy gullet due to Desire’s shitty aim. 

 

They’ve also managed to gank a giant possessed menorah one exciting Wednesday morning. 

 

It’s only December 4th. 

 

He and Dean had just settled down for a nice soak in the shower and an even longer soak in the bottom of a whiskey bottle when Garth calls about a windigo up in Montana that needs dealing with. 

 

“Guys, come on. It’s just one little baby windigo. You’ve ganked one before right?”

 

Sam rubs his face with his good hand, the one not wrapped in a cast because of his six Christmas-fiasco attributed fractures, “Garth, that’s not the point. You’ve been calling us everyday for the last two weeks with holiday insanity. We’re not superheroes here; we can’t gank something every single day.”

 

“Come on you guys, it’s super busy around this time of year and half the hunters out there won’t pick up their phones.” Sam can faintly hear ‘Wonderwall’ in the background. He wants to punch something. 

 

“It’s because they’re smart enough to take a vacation.”

 

“Guys-“

 

Dean moans from his place, face first down, on the bed. His voice is muffled through the pillow, “Tell Garth that the holidays can blow us.”

 

“Dean wants you to know the holidays can blow us.”

 

“Come on guys, just one more and I won’t call you until after Christmas.”

 

“Make it New Years.”

 

“New Years? Man, you know drunk wizards on the 31st are-"

 

"New Years or we take an indefinite break."

 

"Got it. Done and done my brother.”

 

“You promise?”

 

“Cross my heart.”

 

“… Fine.”

\---------------

 

BONUS/EXTRA:

 

\----------------

 

 

Dean and Sam are covered in mud.

 

More specifically, they are covered in mud, blood and windigo excrement by the time said windigo has finally burned to a husk. Dean’s sporting a nasty gash on his chest that cut clean through his leather jacket and Sam is going to need his arm recast from where the windigo splintered the plaster in between its teeth. 

 

Basically another day at the office. 

 

Dean practically rips the door open to get inside, “’One more’, he said. ‘It’s just a little windigo,’ he said. More like a windigo on fucking steroids. Next time we’re telling Garth that he can blow us too. Screw this, I’m done.”

 

Dean throws his, now mud-clogged gun, down on the motel table and starts stripping off his clothes. He throws them in a pile by the portable safe. 

 

“Seriously, I’m gonna have to fucking burn all this. That smell is never going to come out.”

 

Sam wearily follows him through the door, wondering how the hell he’s going to get his shirt off without causing himself severe agony. The fabric is going to catch on his cast at one point or another. It might just be easier to cut his clothes off. 

 

Dean’s down to his boxers when he rounds on Sam with a pair of scissors, apparently thinking the exact same thing. 

 

“Stay still,” he says, and soon Sam is half naked as well. The relief from the smell is almost instant. It’s one thing to have a pile of rotten clothes in your room. It’s another thing all together to actually have to wear them. 

 

Dean’s talking about getting Bobby’s old bone saw out of the Impala to cut off the cast when Sam’s cell phone rings. 

 

Dean’s got the phone before Sam gets around the bed. He opens it with such force it almost snaps the phone in two. Then, Dean loses his shit. 

 

“Garth I swear on all that his holy that I will personally gut you with a dull blade if you so much as think of speaking to us right now! It’s just a little baby, you said! More like the hulk on steroids! You should see what it did to Sam’s arm! So go find another pair of suicidal idiots to do your dirty work you bastard!” 

 

The phone snaps shut and almost takes the first flight into a wall before Sam can rescue it. He still needs that thing, despite how angry Dean may be. 

 

They’ve got it on one of the beds when it rings again. Dean’s cry of rage is terrifying. 

 

“I thought I told you to stop-… oh… oh um… sorry.” Dean turns to Sam and passes him the phone, “It’s Amelia.”

 

“Jesus Dean,”

 

“What? I didn’t know.”

 

Sam rolls his eyes, “Amelia?”

 

“Sam? What was that all about? And what happened to your arm?”

 

“Oh, just trying to catch our friend’s dog. I got bit.”

 

“Are you ok?”

 

“Well my hand was already broken, so it’s not that big a deal.”

 

“Sam.”

 

“What? It’s not.” Sam looks at Dean and motions with his head towards the bathroom. Dean just shakes his head with a shit-eating grin on his face and leans back on his bed with his hands behind his head. Sam shoots him the finger.

 

“So what’s up?”

 

“What? A girl can’t call and check up on her lovely pseudo-boyfriend every once and awhile?”

 

Sam smiles, “No, not any one I know. Now tell me, what’s going on?”

 

When Amelia doesn’t say anything back to him he gets a little nervous.

 

\-------------

 

“Amelia? Seriously, what’s going on?” Dean sits up straight, getting ready for high alert. “Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah! Yes, Sam I’m fine. I just… don’t know how to ask-” Sam hears shuffling in the background of the phone.

 

“Come on, you’re scaring me.”

 

“Alright!” She takes a breath, “WillyoucomevisitforChristmas?”

 

Sam relaxes infinitesimally, “… What?”

 

“I want you to come visit. For Christmas. Me. And Don. We both do.”

 

“Um… okay?”

 

“I know you don’t like to celebrate the holidays, but remember we talked about you maybe visiting sometime? This is just perfect too, right before the… baby’s born.” Sam can practically hear her fidget over the phone, “I just… Don and I wanted to know if you were free… because as far as we’re concerned, you’re family…”

 

Sam thinks about cool brown wood and Amelia’s hand on his leg. The smell of antiseptic is strong in his mind; he sinks down onto his bed and rests his elbows on his knees. Dean stares at him from his spot on the bed, “Amelia it’s fine.”

 

“We want you there Sam. We really do.” When Sam doesn’t say anything she adds, “You can even bring that man of yours along for the ride.” 

 

Sam smiles at that, grateful for a break in the tension, “So what? You can play interrogator?” Dean looks at Sam questioningly, but Sam flaps a hand in his direction. 

 

“No! Well, maybe yes. It’s what any upstanding pseudo-girlfriend would do. Check up on her fake-man’s boyfriend to make sure he’s being treated like a prince… and such.”

 

“Alright?”

 

“So that’s a ‘yes, you’ll come’? Or a ‘yes, you should check up to make sure my boyfriend’s treating me right’.”

 

“Yes we’ll come. We wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Dean looks at him very pointedly in a way that suggests he does not approve of the end of the world even being brought up in conversation for fear that Winchester bad luck will strike again and they will actually have to miss whatever Sam’s agreeing to, to deal with it. 

 

He then appears to catch a whiff of himself and his face scrunches up. He makes a motion with his hand in a gesture that clearly means ‘Finish up so we can deal with the literal shit-storm that has become our lives’.

 

“Amelia I have to go.”

 

“Really? But I wanted to talk shop with you. Decorations and gifts, sugarplums in my head and all that.” She pauses, “Now’s the part where you tell me I’m sweet enough as it is and declare your undying love for me.”

 

Sam snorts, “You’re sweet enough as it is and I love you, but I really have to go.”

 

There’s a longsuffering sigh from Amelia’s side, “Fine. But you are coming?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You promise. None of that, ‘Oh Amelia I promise to write’ and then you never do crap, right?”

 

“Yes. I promise.”

 

“Okay… I miss you.”

 

“I miss you too. I’ll call you later, alright?”

 

“Okay. Bye!”

 

Sam turns to Dean with a pinched look on his face. 

 

“So I think I just agreed to spending Christmas with Amelia and Don.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

“Yup.”

 

Dean grunts, “Awesome.” Then grabs Sam’s good hand and leads him towards the bathroom, “Now we’re going to cut that cast off and then you’re going to help me wash the shit off my back before the flies mistake me for their new home.”

 

Sam and Dean make their way to Texas with no small amount of difficulty. They’ve got a few weeks until Christmas, but Amelia had insisted they come in advance and stay through mid-January. 

 

Despite their best efforts to avoid the supernatural, they have to stop twice to deal with ghouls, once for a werewolf and once more to recast Sam’s arm (again), because the makers of casting plaster clearly did not have mutant wolf Purgatory spawn in mind when they created it. 

 

When they show up at Amelia’s house (late), Sam’s enveloped in a tight hug. It feels like he’s been hit by a rugaru with all the weight she’s gained in the last few months. 

 

Amelia’s busy climbing him like a tree when Don comes up behind her and pats him on the arm he’s wrapped around her waist. “Hey Sam. Better late than never I guess.” He turns to Dean and shakes his hand. “I’m Don.”

 

“Jim,” Dean says.

 

“Good to meet you Jim.” He turns back to his wife, “Babe… babe… Amelia? Seriously, Sam has to breathe sometime, get down.”

 

Amelia ignores her husband. “Ah Sam. We have to stop meeting like this.” She grins broadly, but when she leans back further in Sam’s grip his hand slips where he can’t bend his fingers in the cast. “Oh shit!” Amelia scrambles down off of him. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was broken! How did you break it? Why is it broken? I didn’t hurt you did I?”

 

She runs her fingers over the cast and looks up at Sam worriedly.

 

“Amelia, it’s no big deal. Really. Just a dog, remember?”

 

“Just a dog my ass. How could a dog break your arm?”

 

“It’s just my wrist, no-“

 

Amelia pulls his arm towards her by the elbow, “What, were you mauled by a werewolf or something?”

 

Dean draws attention to himself by snorting, very loudly, next to them. He and Don are watching them with amused expressions on the other side of the entryway. 

 

“… Or something.” Sam murmurs, giving Dean a look. 

 

Amelia’s gaze turns predatory. “You must be Jim.”

 

Dean’s face falls. Sam’s never seen him this kind of scared. The kind of scared that only comes with meeting your lover’s ex-girlfriend or parents. Dean visibly swallows. 

 

“Uh, yeah. Hi.” Dean extends his hand. 

 

“It’s good to finally meet you.” Amelia shakes Dean’s hand and nods her head towards the house. “Why don’t we go inside? You guys can put your stuff in Sam’s old room and then we can have dinner.” She looks at Sam. “How does that sound?”

 

Dean’s response is immediate. “Great! We can… go inside. Yes. That is… Good.” Don chuckles behind him and leads the way into the living room. Dean looks like he wants Sam to take his Glock and put him out of his misery. 

 

Amelia and Sam share an amused look behind his back and Sam pulls Amelia back in to give her a proper hug, one that doesn’t involve climbing. 

 

“He’s nervous.”

 

“As he should be.” Amelia smiles up at him. 

 

Sam looks at Dean and says near Amelia’s ear, loud enough for his brother to hear him, “You’re going to rip him a new one aren’t you?”

 

She turns her head and says to Dean’s back, “Oh most definitely.”

 

Sam smiles. Dean has the good sense to look terrified.

 

\--------------

 

Dean finds Sam unpacking his duffle on the middle of his bed. While he was lugging their bags up from the car, Dean was being given a brief tour of the house. Sam’s pretty sure there was some purposefully weak interrogating happening on Amelia’s part, but it’s neither here nor there. 

 

Dean doesn’t look any more shaken up than he did when Sam left him, but that doesn’t tell him much; his brother’s always been better at hiding his emotions. 

 

His room is exactly as he left it, right down to the faint remnants of spray paint under his bed where he had trouble scraping off the Devil’s Trap before he left. Dean looks everything over with a seemingly lazy eye. 

 

“So this is your room, huh?”

 

“Yeah… Well, it was. ” 

 

Sam’s not sure what to say next. He’s positive the only times Dean’s ever stayed in an actual house was before the fire, at Bobby's (which, despite its significance in his life, Sam is reluctant to call a 'normal' house considering its striking resemblance to a military bunker) or anytime they had to squat in abandoned homes over the years. 

 

When he looks at Dean, the man’s feigned nonchalance is a dead give away that he’s thinking something similar. Sam grabs his hand and pulls him to sit on the bed, moving their duffels out of the way. 

 

“We can stay in a motel if that’d be easier.”

 

“Naw Sammy. I’ll be fine. It’s really not a big deal.” Which Sam knows is bullshit. Dean has no idea how to sleep in a room without salting the windows or painting sigils on the walls. He doesn’t feel safe without a gun at his side and a knife under his pillow. And in the last few years, if anything solidified that mentality in him permanently, it was Purgatory. The closest he’s ever come to needing to share anything with another person besides Sam is a thin motel wall. 

 

The instant they walked in Amelia’s house Dean had been cataloguing every nook and cranny, figuring out which creature could attack from where. 

 

Sam waits a moment and flexes his fingers, still laced between Dean’s, “If it makes you feel any better, I lived here for almost a year without any supernatural clusterfucks that required attention.”

 

“It really doesn’t.” Dean looks at the window, calculating, “But I appreciate the effort.”

 

Sam follows his gaze and shrugs and decides it couldn't hurt, “If we keep the lines small we can probably get away with doing the windows.” When Dean bolts off the bed towards the sills, salt already pulled from his bag, Sam quickly adds, “As long as we clean it up afterwards.”

 

Dean’s grin is showy and lewd, but his body relaxes into the familiar salting ritual, “Don’t I always Sammy?”

 

\------------

Dinner consists of macaroni and hotdogs. Even though Dean isn’t in on the reasoning, Sam can tell he wholeheartedly approves if the second helping is anything to go by. 

 

He’s just glad this welcome dinner is going better than the last one. 

 

“It’s meat and noodles,” Sam tells Amelia, “No wonder he likes it.”

 

Dean points a fork at him. He’s been relaxing more and more as the night went on and is almost acting like he does in public. Slightly more on guard than when it’s just them, but still loose enough. “Sammy, the basic embodiment of my entire childhood is meat and noodles. Don’t besmirch the good name of our relationship.”

 

“Your relationship?” Then he does a double take, “Besmirch?”

 

Dean smirks and takes a pull off his beer, “You heard me.”

 

Sam shares a look with Amelia and asks, “You and meat?”

 

“Don’t be jealous. I still like you somewhere in my top ten.”

 

Don snorts into his drink and Sam rolls his eyes.

 

At the lull in conversation he can feel Dean gently rub his knee, nod at him with a mouth full of pasta and beer. He gives him a soft smile in return. 

 

“Oh my god, are we like that?” Amelia whispers none to quietly to Don on the other side of the table.

 

Don nods his head sagely, “Disgusting.”

 

None of them can hold back their laughter. 

 

\---------------

 

Desert is coffee in the living room, decaffeinated for Amelia, and it’s so domestic Sam needs to blink to make sure the sight won’t go away. Dean’s even laying off the booze tonight. 

 

It makes Sam want to down a fifth to stop the nervous sweat under his pits. He’s been having these almost-anxious pangs in his chest for a while now and it seems the calm moment before him is triggering another one. 

 

He’s not sure, but it might be the swell of Amelia’s belly or the way Don wraps one arm around her shoulder and places the other protectively over her bump. Maybe it’s how they lean into one another like Plato’s conjoined lovers, wearing each other on their sides like a second skin. Maybe it’s Dean consciously trying to not get drunk for the first time in a very long time that might be it. 

 

Realistically, it’s probably a combination of everything, but it all leads to the same thing: Sam retreats in to his head long enough for the shaky feeling in his stomach to settle and for the growing headache to dissipate a little. He’s almost calmed all his flakey synapses down to a simmer when two hands take hold of him and his whole body is jerked forward quickly by those calloused palms.

 

“Sammy? You with me?” And when did Dean get in front of him? 

 

“What?” He shakes his head a little trying to gather his thoughts, “Yeah, of course.”

 

“Are you sure?” Don asks from- woah; he’s sitting behind Amelia at Sam’s side. Sam can only blink more, like a deer in headlights. Where did they come from?

 

“You’ve been out of it for a while Sam,” Amelia takes his hand in hers. He can feel her curve into his side and for some reason the pressure of her belly on his side is like hellfire on burning through his clothes. Sam pulls away as fast as he can without falling off the couch. Amelia looks torn between pulling him back in and crying. Sam wants to punch himself. 

 

“No-I’m sorry.” He reaches for her hands, but thinks better of it and stops short, “I’m sorry. I just… I need some air.” He hastily stands up and manages to traverse the living room furniture in one piece.

 

He tries to hold off from sprinting to the backdoor. 

 

He’s not sure he succeeds.

 

\-------------

 

One by one, all three members of Sam’s makeshift family sit back down in their respective places on the couches. 

 

Dean sighs, “So you know not to follow him when he gets like this too, huh?”

 

Amelia nods her head, “It’s best to leave him alone for a while.”

 

Dean looks at his feet for a moment, considering his words carefully, “How did-… Could you tell me… what was Sam like… the year I was- he was with you?”

 

No one says anything for a long moment. Amelia scrubs her hands over her face and Don puts a hand on her shoulder. She collects herself slowly, but Dean holds his tongue, bites down the impulse to press for information like he would on a case. He waits. 

 

“He was… You deserve to know, I think… I don’t even think he remembers what he did. And it’s not his fault, he had a hard few-“ She looks at Don and back at Dean, “He’s not as bad as he was before, but… but I- he would walk around like a zombie and not remember anything. Like, entire hours would be missing and-and… I found him- one time I came home and found him in the car with his gun and- I just-“ She puts her head in her hands and cries. 

 

No one says anything more for a long while. 

 

\----------------

 

“How’re you holding up?” Sam feels his brother run a hand through his hair. He’s been sitting on the back porch with his arms crossed, resting with his head in them on his knees. He breathes through his nose and tries to relax. Sam didn’t realize how much it would hurt to be around someone whose family is starting just like his was over a year ago. It’s the same if he ignores the demons chasing him, the malnutrition and exhaustion. If he ignores the death of his brother-cum-lover hanging over his body like a storm cloud. 

 

If he forgets losing Box in every possible way.

 

It’s like Amelia’s in the race and going strong. 

 

Sam lost before he even made it to the starting line. 

 

He’s exhausted. 

 

Then the firm pressure of Dean’s hand on neck brings him back. He leans into his the touch and feels his body shake against his will. 

 

His head is heavy like solid iron when he lifts it to look at his brother. 

 

Dean’s face is lit by the soft glow of the Christmas lights on the porch railing. They don’t look anything like the fairies he dreamt about as a child, but exactly what they’re like in real life. Yet another thing that makes Christmas just a bit darker. 

 

Dean looks right back, “What do you want to do?” He says, soft words like thunder in the calm night air. 

 

What Sam wants to do is to get in the Impala and drive until he doesn’t know where Kermit is. He wants to go back inside and beg for Amelia’s forgiveness for not being able to handle domesticity. He wants to kiss Dean until he can’t feel anything anymore and apologize to him for still being cracked in the head.

 

Sam settles on the easiest choice and pulls his brother in by the collar, kissing him as fiercely as he can. He bites the insides of Dean’s mouth and scrapes his teeth across his gums until he tastes blood. He screws his tongue forward and tries to choke Dean with it until neither can breathe. Sam pushes his fingers into Dean’s skull, prying his jaw open at the joint; he presses until he feels the skin give way in the familiar feel of forming bruises. 

 

Dean takes it all and gives back more in return. 

 

He didn’t think their first kiss in over a year would be like this. 

 

Sam almost sobs when he realizes he’d forgotten what Dean tastes like.

 

\------------------

 

Don is still in the living room, sitting in the same place where Sam and Dean left him, but Amelia is nowhere in sight. Sam gives Don a brief nod and Dean a glance before heading upstairs. 

 

Dean watches him go, then turns to Don on the couch. He gets a beer raised in his direction. 

 

“You want another?”

 

“You have no idea.”

 

They head into the kitchen and Don pulls two more bottles from the fridge; he passes one to Dean. Dean leans against the counter while the other man takes a pull. 

 

“You wanna talk about it?” Don asks, “What Sam was like? I mean, I wasn’t there for a good portion of it.” At Dean’s questioning look he says, “Iraq.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“But I was there for about a month and a half of it, before he left. Well…” He takes another pull, “Before I asked him to leave.”

 

When Dean doesn’t respond, he continues. 

 

“I don’t think they slept together, if that helps.” That earns Don a quiet look.

 

“Really.”

 

“They said they didn’t. And with Sam in the condition he was in…” Don slowly rolls a shoulder, “I think it was the furthest thing on either of their minds.”

 

“I always thought they…” Dean makes a motion with his hands, “You know.”

 

“So did I, but when I think about it…” Don shakes his head a little, “No. I believe them.”

 

Dean’s quiet. He can feel Don’s gaze sizing him up. 

 

“So,” Don says after another moment, “Where were you last year?”

 

He shrugs, “What did Sam tell you?”

 

“He said you were in Europe.”

 

He snorts a little, Sam’s still Sam, even when he loses his marbles, “Then I was in Europe.” 

 

Don moves to sit on a kitchen stool, “Okay then. So you wanna know or not?”

 

Dean holds back a rude remark, pushes down the instinct to take out his frustration on the closest person near him, “… Yeah. Yes, please.”

 

Don looks at him, considering, “You ever meet Sam’s brother?” At Dean’s nod he continues, “I think when he died, that’s what kick started Sam’s-“ He makes a circular motion by his head, “-thing.” He picks at his beer label, “We would go through an entire day and everything would seem normal until around dinner, like he was sun downing or… something.” 

 

Dean looks at him, “Sun downing?”

 

“Yeah, it’s when old folks sort of lose it late in the day. They know everything in the morning and then around dinner they think Roosevelt’s the president again. Sam’d sometimes be like that. He’d be fine, then-“ He makes the circular motion with his hand again, bottle in hand, “He’d lose an hour or so. He was always confused, thinking we hadn’t eaten or… whatever.”

 

Dean looks at his shoes and listens. He knows a kicker’s coming when he hears it.

 

“Sometimes he’d ask about a guy named Bobby or his dad.” He looks at Dean, “They’re both dead, right?” Dean nods stiffly, “Then he’d remember just like that, like someone hit him over the head with it. It was rough at first, but it got better. Enough that I though he’d be fine on his own.” Don rubs his eyes, “Amelia wasn’t lying. This… that-“ He points to the living room, “It’s not as bad as it was.” Don takes a drink, “She says it was really bad when he got out of the hospital. When he-… you know.”

 

“Yeah, I know.”

 

\-----------------

 

“Sometimes - and I’m don’t think this was on purpose, but he would be fixing something at work and he’d come back with these giant bruises from where he smashed his hand with a hammer or from where he got his knee stuck in a vent. He was making dinner with Amelia and almost took off a finger once.” Don sighs, “I really don’t think he knew what he was doing, but it was a little too frequent, even with someone as big as Sam. I don't think he's that clumsy. Then there were the mirrors-”

 

“Mirrors?”

 

“Sam took down all the mirrors in the house and in the motel they were holed away in.” 

 

Dean can’t help but raise an eyebrow, “They stayed at a motel together?”

 

“Not together, but down the hall. Both got it in their heads to live in a motel like it was an apartment complex.” Don shakes his head at the thought, “When I asked about it, Amelia said she was running from something-… from us.”

 

“And Sam?” Dean presses.

 

“Sam said it was like going home. Which, lemme tell you, I have no idea what that means.”

 

It means Sam is and always will be a sap, but Dean doesn’t say this. He’s gotten over the mirror thing, Dean thinks, but he’s not sure. Sam could just be not looking at them instead of taking them down all together. He’s going to have to double check on the bruising… thing. Though there’s no way to really tell without concrete visual evidence because of the crap they go through on a daily basis. 

 

Don looks up from his bottle when he asks, “Has he been like this with you? Or… before?”

 

He thinks and really, Dean’s ashamed to say he doesn’t know for sure. He knows how screwed up Sam was before Cas fixed his Satan-vision. He still had some trouble after as well, but Sam was over that. Or at least, Dean’s pretty sure he was. 

 

Lately though, he has no idea. He doesn’t know how Sam’s supposed to act anymore; he doesn’t know what his brother’s ‘normal’ is anymore. 

 

When he realizes Don’s waiting for a response, he says, “Before, yeah.” And leaves it at that. 

 

“Listen Jim, about me asking Sam to leave. I know it was selfish of me.” Don lets out a weary sigh, “But at the time, I thought I had every right to be… after. And I just wanted my life back.”

 

Dean understands, he does. He has every idea what it’s like to want a life that isn’t falling apart at the seams. He knows what it’s like to grasp at straws; he’s been doing it his entire life, but lately every time he thinks it can’t get worse, it does. Then he’s looking back, wondering how the hell he thought what he was going through before was even worth complaining about. 

 

Every time he thinks he knows what rock bottom feels like, someone hands him a jackhammer to dig a little deeper. 

 

Neither man has anything else to say, so they don't. 

 

Don stands up and puts his beer on the counter. He rolls up his sleeves and says, “So… dishes?”

 

Dean nods and picks up a towel.

 

\-----------------------

 

Sam finds Amelia in her bedroom while Dean waits with Don. When he knocks on the doorframe to her open room she gives a sad little wave. 

 

“Can I come in?”

 

“Of course, Sam.” She pats the space next to her on the bed, “Come here.”

 

Sam sits down and crosses his fingers together in front of himself, “Amelia I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-to-“

 

“It’s okay Sam. I understand.” Amelia puts her hand on his arm, caught between wanting to lean forward and sit back. Her stomach is preventing both things from happening, “Really. It’s alright.”

 

She looks at him and smiles a little, “You know, I can’t go to County because they still think I’m infertile?” She laughs under her breath, “Don and I have to drive all the way up to Memorial.”

 

Sam gives her a smile. 

 

Amelia rests her head on his shoulder and they sit together for a long moment. Sam remembers when they first started living together. Amelia had taken to lying on Sam like he was her own personal body pillow about five weeks into their arrangement. She fell asleep next to him on the couch one night after they watched a long, drawn out movie when all of a sudden he felt her arms wrap around him and lock in place. When she had woken up drooling on his chest and still gripping him like an octopus, she had blushed and stammered an apology, promising to never do it again. 

 

The next Saturday he found himself in the exact same position. 

 

Ever since, Sam had accepted his fate of having to sit long hours as motionless as possible while she slept like the dead on his chest. She even migrated to lying on him when she was wide-awake, heating his side up like a furnace. It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, he knew. He had experienced ‘worse’ and being a human mattress certainly wasn’t it. 

 

Amelia’s pregnancy apparently didn’t change the fact that Sam was and will forever be her body-pillow-bitch. 

 

The only real downsides to the whole situation were the inevitable crick in his back from having to stay in one, usually awkward, position for extended periods of time and that Amelia had a tendency to ask the hard-hitting questions whenever there was a lull in the tension of his body. It didn’t help that she was acutely aware Sam lowered his guard in those quiet moments. 

 

Apparently, being pregnant didn’t change that either. 

 

Amelia rests her whole body on him in one exhale. It’s so smooth Sam doesn’t even notice until she opens her mouth that he’s been caught. Again.

 

“Where’s your Box?”

 

Sam stiffens instantly. “He’s… with my mom.”

 

Amelia’s breath puffs warm air onto his shoulder, “So he’s safe.” She says. 

 

Sam nods, “Yeah.” The image of pond water and ginger children flash through his mind quickly and he adds, “Safe enough. Now.”

 

“Jim knows.” She says. When Sam hums an affirmative she says, “Good.” And leaves it at that. She rolls against him a little and holds him tighter. Sam is grateful Amelia’s never been one to pry much into the lives of others. He doesn’t really ever want to talk about Box in detail to anyone, not even Dean, and he’s pretty sure he can get away with it even if ignoring things until they go away has never worked for him before. Either that or he’ll become reacquainted with his good old friend Denial. 

 

“Amelia?” Don calls up from the kitchen.

 

She sighs against his shirt, “We should go.”

 

He nods his head, “Yeah.”

 

\-----------------

 

Sam’s just coming up from the living room where he’s left Don and Amelia. The latter was drooling onto her husband’s chest where she’d fallen asleep during their post-dinner, post-coffee, post-crazy pow wow on the couch. It seems Sam’s not the only one she grapples to in her sleep. He’s pretty sure Don must be either a saint or one god-awful heavy sleeper if he can share a bed with the woman. 

 

When everyone had reconvened in the living room they had softened the awkward silence with pie. A lot of pie. Sam had told Amelia a long time ago that his boyfriend/lover/whatever had been a fan of the stuff, borderline psychotic obsessive really, and he’s grateful she remembered enough to buy five different types. Sam’s hopeful that the tension from before has dissipated a little. 

 

When he gets upstairs, however, he sees Dean sitting at the end of their bed, staring at the wall with glassy eyes. 

 

“Dean? Are you okay?”

 

When Dean doesn’t answer him, Sam moves to sit down next to his brother. He knows Dean has a tendency to compartmentalize everything until something breaks through his wall.

 

“Dean?”

 

His brother sniffs. When he answers, his voice is just above a whisper, “Did you try and kill yourself Sam?”

 

“Dean-“

 

“I don’t want to believe her, but Amelia said she found you in the Impala with-… But I know you wouldn’t do that, not my brother, because he knows where he’d end up if he killed himself. So tell me she saw wrong, man. Please, I just-“ Dean turns red-rimmed eyes on him, “Please tell me you weren’t going to do it. I-“ 

 

Sam doesn’t know what to say. He can’t say anything. He simply rests his head on Dean’s shoulder and lets him cry.

 

\----------------------

 

Amelia and Don both pass by their door an hour or so later on their way to bed. Don gives Sam a hug and nods to Dean. Sam’s a little curious about the meaningful glance the two men share but doesn’t mention it for fear of upsetting the tentative calm that came after he confirmed what Amelia said to Dean earlier. It’s strange how instantly the tension always releases from the bubble of air surrounding them once the truth comes out, like neither of them have any energy to continue maintaining it and in the end it just flows out of them like water (Sam’s not sure if it’s because he doesn’t like lying to Dean or if it’s because Dean doesn’t like being lied to). 

 

He wonders if Dean’s madder at Sam or himself. Honestly, he’s hoping they never talk about it again. 

 

Amelia hugs both of them as fiercely as one can with a stomach like a bowling ball. As she shuts the door behind her, she sticks her head through and says with a sad grin (though she tries to make it happy), “Goodnight guys.” Then she and Don gone as fast as they came. 

 

There’s a new obstacle on the horizon, Sam realizes. 

 

There’s only the one bed. 

 

With everything that’s happened in the last few hours, they’d somehow managed to overlook the fact that Sam’s queen-sized bed (as insisted upon by Amelia despite his arguments that a single would be fine) was still just a queen-sized bed. Not two, but one. The same bed that they were just sitting on seems smaller, shrinking with each passing second and occupying the room exactly like an elephant for the rest of their nightly rituals. 

 

Sam cleans his teeth and does not think about the bed. 

 

Dean chucks his shoes and undresses down to his boxers and pointedly does not think about the bed. 

 

Sam spends an unreasonable amount of time folding his clothes and most certainly does not even think about looking in the bed’s direction because seeing it will just solidify the fact that by no means will it split into two and create an easy out for this situation. 

 

“Look, Sam. I can take the floor.” Dean’s rolling up his jacket into a ball and pulling the top blanket off towards the small space between the edge of the bed and the wall, “You need the space for your gigantor limbs anyway, so it’s no big deal.”

 

And really, Sam’s both all for that idea and completely against it. He goes for the less childish decision, “This is stupid, Dean.” He says, yanking the cover back and smoothing it out. He gives up halfway and wrenches the sheets back with perhaps a little too much force, “We’re grown men. Get in the bed.”

 

Dean just grunts, grumbling out, “Whatever you say, Sammy.” Before throwing his jacket onto a nearby chair and climbing in next to him.

 

Sam remembers a time when he and his brother knew each other inside and out. They would move in tandem, eat each other’s food and breathe each other’s air with only friendly bickering floating between them. Back when they were kids they could sit in a crawlspace big enough for someone half his size and it would seem like a whole room’s worth of space for all they cared. 

 

Before the whole leviathan debacle, they slept in the same bed, though it wasn’t perfect; they didn’t fit together like puzzle pieces. Sam had a tendency to smother Dean in his sleep whenever he rolled over and his brother would often end up accidentally punching him in the solar plexus when he was startled awake by a noise. Either one of them would snore too loudly or would make too much noise to use the bathroom at odd hours. Once, Dean went through a sleepwalking phase where he would check and recheck every weapon before he settled back down. Twice, Sam stopped sleeping altogether. 

 

Even when he was drinking demon blood they still shared a bed more often than not. 

 

Through it all Dean was his and he was Dean’s.

 

\-------------------

 

Now he’s not sure who belongs to whom anymore. He doesn’t know where he ends and Dean begins, but he’s well aware there is an ending where there wasn’t one before. 

 

Sam can’t remember the last time they slept in the same bed. He doesn’t remember how to fit Dean in his space anymore, whether touching him is allowed or not. The kiss from earlier doesn’t do anything to help him understand what they are and aren’t allowed to do based on the unwritten rules of affection. If anything he’s even more confused than before. 

 

They end up staring at the ceiling for a long time, each not knowing where to put their limbs in the cramped space. 

 

The silence is deafening, sitting over them like a heavy winter blanket. 

 

Dean is clearly just as uncomfortable as Sam. His arms are crossed over his chest like he’s an Egyptian mummy and if he managed to be any more still Sam might think he was dead. 

 

He looks at his brother for a moment, trying to find the outline of his face in the dark. His eyes are having a hard time adjusting, even with the streetlight coming in through the window. Sam wonders if Dean can see him; if the year in Purgatory sharpened his vision or his hearing. He’s struck with the idea that maybe this isn’t his brother anymore. That Dean might as well have come back with a caramel center for all he knows of the time his brother was under. That for all he talked about Hell, Dean’s spoken even less about Purgatory. 

 

That Sam used to know everything about this man lying next to him, but now has no fucking clue. 

 

He wants to rip Dean open and swallow him whole. Desperately, he wants to gobble down everything Dean has to offer him if only to know him again (and it doesn’t escape his attention that the only suitable metaphor for his desires is running painfully close to the root of all his current problems). 

 

How did you find Benny? Do you still sometimes fantasize about what life would’ve been like with that girl in Ohio? Or with Lisa? Does your shoulder still bother you when it rains? Did you ever wonder if I was dead?

 

Is all of this really worth it? Still?

 

The glassy shine of Dean’s eyes turn towards him in the dark with a soft, calculating look. He sees him blink, like he’s waiting for something. His breathes out through is nose and Sam can hear air hit the pillowcase under Dean’s head. He can smell toothpaste mixing with Amelia’s laundry detergent. 

 

Sam’s entire body feels at odds with itself. He is tense and relaxed, filled with the sense of impending danger and at the same time, as safe as he’s ever felt before. 

 

He buries his hands beneath his pillow and holds still, forces his body to go limp and relax into sleep. He lies there.

 

He doesn’t know what else to do. 

 

Dean’s eyes close and he rolls over onto his stomach with his head facing away, “Go to sleep Sammy.”

 

Sam stares at the shaggy dark outlines of Dean’s hair before he shifts his body so he’s lying on his side. He falls asleep like that, facing the wall, straining to hear Dean’s breathing over the silence.

 

\------------------

 

The next few days pass relatively without incident. He and Amelia spend the days together, sometimes reading, sometimes watching a movie or cooking. He helps her pick out her father’s Christmas present and they briefly stop into a baby supply store to look at cribs. 

 

He doesn’t have a panic attack nor does he fall into a well of abject misery. It’s a welcome surprise. Sam even buys a small jumper as a gift for Amelia. 

 

He and Don go for jogs in the afternoon sometimes and he leaves his brother and his friend to their newfound relationship that is seemingly based on who can shit-talk the other more. It’s both hysterical and terrifying in ways. Sam and Don have often returned to them cleaning the house and shouting insults back and forth at one another from rooms located on different floors, both smiling all the while. 

 

Don and Dean sometimes go for a beer when Sam and Amelia are more inclined to stay home. Sometimes they all go together. 

 

Everyone seems to be doing just fine. 

 

The only thing Sam is having issues with is the fact that Dean’s sort of fallen back into the routine he favors when he’s in his parenting mode (more important, even, than brother or lover in Dean’s eyes it seems) and if anything, Sam thinks he might be worse than before. 

 

No. It’s definitely worse. 

 

It’s worse because this time Dean’s attentive, he gives Sam his space, he doesn’t go through his things when Sam’s not looking. 

 

Dean’s respectful. 

 

It’s calm and peaceful and it’s creeping him the fuck out. 

 

The only familiar part of the system is Dean’s insistence on Sam eating, the fallback that has always appeared whenever he was injured and his brother got a bee in his 'sibling responsibility' bonnet. 

 

On the Saturday before Christmas, Dean all but shoves his plate at Sam from across the table. It’s his second portion and is more than half unfinished and he’s clearing Sam’s empty fruit bowl and plate with remnants of eggs and toast out of the way before he can blink. Suddenly, Sam’s got a plate of bacon and sausage in front of him mixed with a glare that suggests not eating would be an unbelievably stupid idea. Then Dean makes a quiet exit from the kitchen, confident in the knowledge his silent order will be followed. 

 

Don’s still asleep upstairs, but Amelia’s next to him and her slipper gently nudges his shin from under the table. Sam sends her a look that hopefully says, ‘Really, don’t bother. He does this all the time.’ Before tucking in. 

 

All in all, Dean’s not done much that would require a vocal complaint, which only makes Sam want to rip his hair out even more with how uncomfortable it makes him. A worried Dean is a possessive and invasive Dean; it’s a Dean that pushes into other people’s business and makes impassioned speeches about family and responsibility or hits the researching books until his eyes bleed. It’s a Dean that becomes a force of unbridled, dangerous energy. 

 

A quiet Dean is something Sam has no clue what to do with. Even when people die, the man instantly starts his quest to avenge their death. He’s pretty sure he’s never seen the man like this. Hell, the only time he’s even heard of his brother being this quiet is when Bobby told him about the ghost town where Dean wouldn’t move his body for days after he di-…

 

Oh shit. 

 

Somehow, Sam knew they were going to have to talk about it. 

 

He readies himself by finishing the sausage, then turns to Amelia and says, “Wish me luck.”

 

She grabs his hand and gives it a squeeze, “Go get ‘em, cowboy.”

 

\------------------

 

Sam finds Dean on the front porch, ever vigilant in the quiet Texas town. In the same way Dean always knows to check the back for Sam whenever he wants a moment of respite, he always knows to check the front for Dean. 

 

He finds him watching the holiday joggers. 

 

It’s the ‘normal’ holiday psychopaths, Sam knows, that freak his brother out. Not only are they human, and therefore not eligible for ganking, but they are often old and decked in brightly colored, jingling (sometimes even battery powered) Christmas sweaters.

 

If Dean ever had a weakness, this would be it. 

 

“What the hell, man?” Is what he gets when he sits down next to Dean on the step, “How can people leave the house in those and not… just. Not.”

 

“I have no idea what that means, Dean.”

 

“It should be illegal to wear one of those is what it means.”

 

“Oh I don’t know,” Sam leans back and gives Dean a lazy grin, “I think you’d look pretty good in a Santa sweater.”

 

“I ought to punch you for even suggesting it.” And the look of such pure disgust and disbelief on his brother’s face is enough to send Sam into a fit, “Yeah, laugh. We’ll see how funny you find it when I burn your shirts and replace them with a fricken Santa suit.”

 

When he calms down, Sam sees Dean smiling at him, “What?”

 

Dean shrugs and turns back to watching the street. Sam leans on his shoulder, hunching down just a bit to get his head where he wants it. 

 

“Are we going to talk about it?” He says, “The year you were gone? Do you want to?”

 

And he’ll admit it, even in court he’d admit it, he’s trying Amelia’s favorite tactic, but damn it all if it works better than anything he’s ever tried. 

 

Dean breathes out, long and fierce through his nose. Sam can feel him consciously remain relaxed under his cheek, that tense softness that comes with trying to stay visually unaffected. His whole body seems to twitch periodically as Dean’s muscles shift through wave after wave of purposeful attempts to calm down. 

 

Tense. Relax. tense. relax. Tense. Tense. Rel-Tense. 

 

Shit but it is weird on the receiving end of a mental freak out. Not entirely awful, but still… weird. 

 

“Dean. You’re making me sea sick with all your twitching.”

 

“If you don’t like my shoulder, you can get off.” Dean growls out, but he seems to relax for real this time, “And I don’t twitch.”

 

“Sure.” Sam lifts his head and looks at his brother in the mid-morning light. It’s nothing special, nothing to write home about, but it’s Dean finally looking at him for the first time in what feels like months. Was months, really, with the whole ordeal they’ve been through. Sometimes it feels like his brother is looking at the Man Who Talks With His Satan Vision or the Demon Blood Sucker. That all he sees is a pile of crazy with saddlebags full of responsibility; that yes, he loves, but still finds incredibly trying. 

 

He doesn’t always see Sam, his little brother, even though these last few weeks he’s been slowly finding his way back to that. 

 

Sam thinks Dean’s just about reached that point; that he’s there, right now. 

 

He smiles, “Hey.”

 

Dean snorts, “Hey.”

 

“I-“ Sam starts, but he’s at a loss of how to continue. “I just-… I want you to know, I-“ He sighs, “I don’t know. I’m… sorry.” And at that, Dean raises an eyebrow at him, “For worrying you,” he explains, “I didn’t… I don’t remember trying anything, just Amelia yelling at me a lot. And… I don’t know what to say. You’re just freaking me out with all of… this.” 

 

He finishes with a weak hand gesture between them, including the house at the end like it helps communicate anything. 

 

God this is hard.

 

\----------------

 

Even though he’s been all for feelings, he knows (from what he remembers of that stupid faze he went through in his early twenties that very similarly resembled ‘Sharing is Caring,’ like he was a throw pillow with it sewn onto his forehead) he’s not very good at it. He never has been. Usually he ends up berating Dean until the man explodes and ends up explaining himself with his fists. Now, he’s not so sure that’s the way to go. He doesn’t know how to approach Purgatory, or how to approach his own mental breakdown for that matter, without sounding like a fucked up afterschool special. ‘Now let us pass the Jack Daniels bottle around and whoever holds it is the one with permission to speak’ is mostly how his family works in situations like this, but without that layer of booze to guide him there’s no obvious way to break the ice. 

 

He has no idea what to do with his hands. So he sits on them. And waits. 

 

And waits. 

 

He wants to explain to Dean what it was like to lose Box, about his life with Amelia (and how they most definitely did not sleep together, specifically), about how much it scares him that he keeps losing Dean over and over again like some broken record and how, every time, it seems they keep coming back with an even greater distance between them. He wants to tell him how much he missed his brother, even when he was standing side by side, sharing the same space and eating the same food, how it felt like they were strangers at times and Sam would kill to get the man he grew up with back. How he can’t function without him and every day without him there it was a struggle to even get out of bed. That once he was up and moving it was even harder to go back to sleep knowing he needed to search and look and find. How even with all that, he wants Dean to know how excited he was to be a dad, how if he thinks about it, he can imagine what life would’ve been like with a baby, though even now he can’t picture in his head what Box would’ve looked like no matter how hard he tries.

 

In the end, it’s Dean who ends up speaking first. 

 

He pulls one of Sam’s hands out from under his thigh and clasps their palms together over his own knee, “I missed you.” He says, looking at Sam’s thumb as he rubs it with his own, “I missed you so much.

 

In Purgatory... you don’t sleep. You’re in this huge forest where it’s always sort of mid-day. You don’t eat. All you really do is kill and try not to be killed. Benny used to say if you died, you would just come back and have to start it all over again like some fucked up video game, but with me… I was still alive when I went, human, so we didn’t really know what would’ve happened if I got my head chopped off. Even Cas didn’t know if I would come back or die like I should, go to the right place that I was meant to go in the end anyway. If I wouldn’t come back at all, just disappear into nothing. But that’s not something you risk on a maybe.” Dean sighs and rubs his face with a hand. 

 

“Sometimes I would wonder what you were doing. I always wanted you with me, right next to me. Fighting with me… One time, I thought you were dead. I didn’t know how long it had been, but I just had this feeling, “Sam’s probably dead. I’ll never see him again.’… It felt like my chest was being ripped apart… Sam-… I-…the thought of losing you is… I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had come back and you weren’t here. And-… and I. I could never be so mad that I would choose someone over you. Never. You’ve always had me. And even with Box and everything that happened, I don’t blame you for anything.” 

 

Dean pulls his hand until he’s not staring at his knees anymore, so they’re looking eye to eye. “Sammy, you did everything you could. I know you did… You would’ve been great at being a dad. And… I know I don’t say it, but I love you. I’m sorry, and I love you so much. Every day. I love you.”

 

Sam pulls his hand free and wraps himself around his brother. His pushes his arms under Dean’s and grips tightly around his stomach, making himself as small as possible. He curls into the hollow space of his brother’s chest like he did as a child and feels the warmth radiating from the leather jacket through the morning chill. 

 

He breathes.

 

\---------------

 

Christmas comes and goes in the blink of an eye. Amelia loves the jumper (a little neutrally colored thing that has a bunny rabbit embroidered in the breast pocket, and why a baby needs a breast pocket Sam has no idea), his friends give him a leather jacket he’s sure Dean will end up stealing from him, but for the moment he puts it on and feels the expensive lining on his forearms. It’s probably the nicest thing he owns as of right now and the first non-hunting related gift he’s received in a long time. He loves it. 

 

Dean doesn’t give any gifts under the tree, but when after Sam comes back from using the bathroom, from around the corner he sees Dean handing Don and Amelia an envelope. Don pulls back the manila fold and there’s a flash of green before he’s folding it back and pushing it at Dean. 

 

“We can’t accept this, Jim.” He says, “It’s… too much.”

 

“No. You take this and you take care of your own.” Dean nods at Amelia and her stomach, “It’ll help. I hope.”

 

There’s a moment’s pause before Amelia jumps him and pulls Dean into a chokehold of an embrace. ‘Thank you thank you thank you.’ Sam can hear her whispering in his brother’s ears. 

 

Don and Dean shake hands around Amelia’s body and Sam takes that moment to make his way back to his seat on the couch. He’s got Amelia on him next, thanking him like she did Dean.

 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. Ugh, I love you both so much.” She kisses his cheek, “My boys.”

 

Sam puts his hands up, “Don’t look at me. I had no idea he was going to do this. Whatever...” He waves his arm between Don and his brother, “... this is. Jim what is this?”

 

“This, my dear Sammy,” He tilts his head to the tree, “Is Christmas.”

 

\---------------

 

The morning they leave, Sam wakes up with his face deep in Dean’s armpit. Their legs are tangled together and if his brother makes one wrong move to the left Sam’s pretty sure he can kiss his left testicle goodbye. 

 

They’re very warm together. 

 

Sam has to pry himself from his brother’s grip and in doing so receives the standard punch to the chest.

 

“Jesus, Dean!” He grabs his chest, “Ugh, God that hurts.”

 

“Oh! Sorry.” Dean stretches and scratches the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

 

Dean pats him on the shoulder, “You’ll be fine.” Then throws his legs over the side of the bed and goes to the bathroom. 

 

Sam tries to smother himself in his pillow before heading downstairs to breakfast.

 

\---------------

 

Amelia is the scariest living woman Sam knows. 

 

“Sam Winchester. If you do not write me or call me within the next week I am going to hunt you down and smack you upside the head. Do you understand me?” She has her hands on her hips and if he tries, Sam can picture a shotgun in her hand, cocked and ready to fire. 

 

It says something that Dean’s very obviously trying to hide himself behind Sam’s back so as not to be the one who’s in her line of fire. 

 

“I will. I promise.” He rubs his chest where there’s sure to be a bruise forming, “I swear I will.”

 

Suddenly Dean’s behind him with both hands on his shoulders and giving Amelia his best shit-eating grin, “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he calls.”

 

She sighs, “Don’t give me that Casanova,” She turns to Don, “Boys.”

 

He nods, “Boys indeed.”

 

Sam goes to hug Amelia and she grabs hold of his shirt from behind, “I’ll miss you.”

 

“I’ll miss you too,” he says, kissing her head. She buries her head in his chest for a moment and Sam can hear Don and Dean clapping each other on the back in what can only be called a man-hug. 

 

They trade places and after he’s pulled apart from Don, he sees Amelia whisper something in Dean’s ear that makes his brother nervously look at her and back again in rapid succession. Dean gives a sharp nod she gives him a pat on the shoulder. 

 

“I’m glad we’ve reached an understanding.”

 

\---------------

 

As the Impala pulls away, Sam gives a wave to his friends standing in their driveway before turning back to his brother. 

 

“What’d she say to you?”

 

Dean looks at him from the corner of his eye and grins. 

 

“Nothin’ Sammy.” He takes Sam’s hand and holds it between them over the seat, “Just… making sure I take care of you.”

 

Sam nods and looks out at the scenery passing by. He watches the houses bleed into farmland that stretches for miles, reveling in the feeling of warm air on his face and the sun on his skin. He leans his head back on the seat and sighs. 

 

“So, where to now?”

 

END


End file.
